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

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Main Card Length: 5 hours, 10 minutes, 52 seconds

Total Bell to Bell Action, Main Card: 2 hours, 19 minutes, 45 seconds

“Wasted” Time: 2 hours, 51 minutes, 7 seconds

Average Match Length: 13 minutes, 53 seconds

Having been in the crowd for WrestleMania 33, I can say that it feels like a long show. By the time the event finally went off the air past midnight local time, it clocked in at over five hours. Throw in the Kick Off Show with a trio of matches, and Mania becomes a long day.

Upon looking at the numbers, though, I had no idea that there was essentially enough time for an entire pay per view in between the matches on this one. Nearly three hours were spent on video packages, Hall of Fame presentations, proposals, Flo Rida, and Undertaker leaving his gear behind. That’s absurd – why make the show five hours long if you only have a little more than two hours of matches?

Look, I get the entertainment aspect of WrestleMania. It’s not just a wrestling show. I’m not suggesting a five hour show should be five hours of continuous wrestling – even I’d get burned out by that. But there wasn’t any way to squeeze more time in for the SmackDown Women’s Championship match? It got a little more than five minutes – that’s an insult.

All told, 55% of WrestleMania 33 was spent on things other than matches. The average match length of just about 14 minutes is consistent with most other recent Manias, even though three matches were longer than 20 minutes.