B-Show

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Professional Wrestling federations tend to end up with more wrestlers than they know what to do with. They tend to sign people simply so that the competition can't, snatch up hot young talents in hopes of figuring out how to put them in the show later, or hire guys as a favor to somebody in the office. Naturally, the average wrestling fed can't squeeze all these guys onto their main "A Show", so they eventually put together a B-Show.

A B-Show is a very different experience from an A Show. Whereas the A Show, being the flagship, will have big, dramatic, Soap Opera-esque storylines with twists, turns, and Shocking Swerves a plenty in order to hook the viewer, a B-Show has few storylines going on at any one time, and what storylines there are are much simpler and largely character-driven. Instead, you'll simply see a few matches- some Squash Matches, and some memorable encounters from those trying to get noticed- with video packages in-between recapping the major storylines from the A Show. They're considered something of a loss-leader in the wrestling world, put on largely so that the wrestlers can keep themselves sharp and the promoters can watch carefully to single out wrestlers with potential, rather than with any eye to ratings and revenue. A B-Show will often be taped at the beginning of a taping for an A Show, to minimize the costs involved.

A wrestler who manages to develop a following on a B-Show can easily find himself promoted to the A Show; however, most B-Show regulars who find themselves on the A Show play a different role entirely.

Examples of B-Show include:

• HEAT has long been WWE's B-Show. It's no longer aired on television, but was viewable on WWE.com for quite a while, until it was canceled completely. In the modern WWE, Superstars now fills this role.
• Long before HEAT, the WWF aired Shotgun Saturday Night, which was unique in that it was set up in incredibly intimate venues (and when we say "intimate venues", we mean places like bars and subway stations). Eventually this became prohibitive, however, and was replaced with a standard B-Show.
  • It also existed in other forms depending on the market. There was a custom version for NY stations called WWF NY, though SSN would still air on another NY station. Markets not airing the show on Saturday night got Shotgun or Shotgun Challenge. Canada got Canadian Superstars. Eventually, they were replaced with Jakked and Metal, which had the same matches in different order with different commentary and recaps intended for different aged audiences.
  • WWE has Raw and Smackdown as its A-Shows. WWE NXT serves as a kind of B-show, with its emphasis on developing talent straight out of the independent circuit (The "Rookies" are competing for a shot on an A-Show). More to the point is WWE Superstars, a show on WGN, which features a match from Raw, Smackdown, and ECW and often recaps the events of the other shows.
    • Oddly, Smackdown serves in a fashion as a B-Show to NXT now. Since the former is in the Friday Night Death Slot, it's recorded at the same time and location as NXT, which airs live. Though Smackdown has many more of the A-Show names on it, mostly to cling to the dreadfully small pool of ratings it has, several A-Show talents appear on NXT as mentors to the new talent.
    • Lately Smackdown has featured very lengthy recaps from Raw with very few matches of it's own, and perhaps is being demoted to a B Show once again.
• TNA Xplosion, which is syndicated in a handful of markets.
• WCW Saturday Night used to be WCW's flagship show, but was demoted to B-Show after WCW Monday Nitro was created to compete directly with the then-WWF. Unlike most B Shows, it still had quite a few storylines going on at any one time with a more old-school sensibility than Nitro, to the point where, by the time of its demise, it seemed to be almost a separate promotion from mainstream WCW.
  • WCW Thunder counted as a B-Show to by virtue of the fact that all of the top-card wrestlers- which Nitro's storylines would revolve around- refused to appear on it. That, and Thunder was so poorly produced that it's hard to believe that WCW cared about it at all.
• Power Pro Wrestling was the B-show to Mid-South Wrestling/Universal Wrestling Federation. At first, it aired a mix of old matches, house show matches, and matches from other territories featuring wrestlers who were coming to the territory soon. In October 1986, it switched to the same format as UWF, with original matches taped specifically for TV, plus the added twist of being taped at the Cowtown Coliseum in Ft. Worth Texas every week so they could promote the idea that country stars might drop in after performing next door at Billy Bob's Texas ("The world's largest honky tonk!"), as well as positioning the show as an alternative to World Class Championship Wrestling out of Dallas/Ft. Worth, which the promotion was now competing against directly.
• In the Memphis-based/CWA/Jarrett territory, the B-show had the same name as the main show (Championship Wrestling), but focused on house show matches from a few weeks earlier. It usually aired in markets like Tupelo, MS and Jackson, TN that got the main show in from Memphis and needed their own show to promote the local house shows.
• Championship Wrestling Superstars/Global Wrestling/North Florida Championship Wrestling/United States Class Wrestling/American Championship Wrestling/Southern Professional Wrestling was the B-show to Championship Wrestling from Florida. That B-show went through a LOT of names.
• For years, the syndicated WWF shows were All-Star Wrestling and Championship Wrestling. They were pretty much equal until the Summer of 1984, when they moved tapings from Pennsylvania to Brantford, ON and Poughkeepsie, NY respectively. At that point, Championship became the clear B-show. A few months before that, Superstars of Wrestling was added as the C-show featuring a mix of original content and matches aired on the other shows. At the start of the Fall '86 TV season, all 3 shows changed names and the A & B shows switched to big arenas that changed each month. Championship Wrestling became Superstars of Wrestling (yup), All-Star Wrestling became Wrestling Challenge, and Superstars of Wrestling became Wrestling Spotlight.