WrestleMania: Has The Grandest Stage of All Gotten Too Big?

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Main Card Length: 3 hours, 53 minutes, 37 seconds

Total Bell to Bell Action, Main Card: 2 hours, 0 minutes, 4 seconds

“Wasted” Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes, 33 seconds

Average Match Length: 17 minutes, 2 seconds

The first ever main roster pay per view broadcast on the WWE Network, WrestleMania XXX was also the shortest. There were only seven matches on the main card, with a single pre-show match airing before that (a pretty good four way eliminator tag title match).

But at over 17 minutes (including the pre-show), the average length of the matches at WrestleMania XXX was the longest. Part of that was due to the fact that four of the seven matches on the main show lasted longer than 20 minutes. Only one of those – Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker – was subpar. But the finish of that one – breaking The Streak™ – more than made up for the lack of quality the match itself provided.

Daniel Bryan wrestled for about 50 minutes over the course of the evening in New Orleans, which helps the show in the long run. Still, when the show went off the air, only slightly more than half the program was dedicated to wrestling. 48.6% of the total run-time was devoted to miscellaneous things – Hall of Fame inductees, video packages, twenty minute Undertaker entrances, the works.

Would you be surprised if I told you this is the least wasteful of the WrestleManias? Keep reading, and you’ll see what I mean.