Photo Source: WWE.com
The move to a self-owned streaming service gives WWE more leeway with how long programming can be. But with WrestleMania 34 on its way, have we gotten to a point of too much?
On February 24, 2014, WWE launched the WWE Network in the United States. Despite some performance issues at the beginning of its run, by the time WrestleMania XXX rolled around a few months later things were better, if not great. Now, there seems to be much less complaints about the quality of the service – at least in my circles – and the Network is an integral part of the WWE fabric.
With a move to a self-owned digital streaming service to air programming, WWE gave itself more freedom in its broadcasts. Rather than being hamstrung by cable providers hosting the pay per view events, there’s no check on how long a show can run. Since WrestleMania is the flagship event for WWE, it’s become a supersized show in the Network Era.
But how much is too much? Despite owning the platform the show broadcasts on, there’s talk every year that “WrestleMania is too long.” Surprisingly, the other WrestleMania talking point is that “there’s no room on the card” for certain matches. How can this possibly be the case? Either the show is too long because everyone ends up on the card, or there’s not enough room for, say, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley outside of the battle royal.
To find out which is the case, I dove into the numbers. For each of the WrestleManias in the WWE Network Era (2014-present), I looked just how much wrestling was on the show. That was compared to the total length of the main show, so we can see just how much time is “wasted” on a given Mania. I also examined how long the average match for each card was, to get an idea as to what we’re looking at for WrestleMania 34.
Read ahead for my findings…
WrestleMania XXX
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.
WrestleMania 31
Main Card Length: 3 hours, 59 minutes, 28 seconds
Total Bell to Bell Action, Main Card: 1 hours, 38 minutes, 46 seconds
“Wasted” Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes, 42 seconds
Average Match Length: 14 minutes, 5 seconds
For a WrestleMania generally regarded as one of the better shows in recent memory, this is by far the most wasteful of all. Nearly 60% of the event was spent on things outside of wrestling – 58.8%, to be exact. The show ran for just shy of four hours, but featured only 98 minutes of competition between the ropes. The original Ghostbusters movie from 1984 is 105 minutes, for comparison. A pair of musical performances will do that, though.
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The trouble with this one really boils down to trying to wait out the daylight. Airing a live show on the West Coast of the United States meant a 4 p.m. local start. In the spring, the sun doesn’t set until roughly 7-7:30 – closer to the end of the show. How do you do an Undertaker entrance in broad daylight?
The entrances also ate up a lot of time in this show. Sting made his long-awaited WWE debut against Triple H, who channeled the Terminator franchise for his admittedly cool, but way too long entrance. The extracurriculars in that match – DX and the nWo getting involved – also stretched out the affair.
There wasn’t a single match on the card that lasted more than 20 minutes, even though the 14 minute average match duration is pretty much the standard for this time period. What also contributed to the “wasted” time, though, was the surprise appearance by The Rock and his introduction of Ronda Rousey to confront Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.
WrestleMania 31 was the last of the four hour main card events, as the standard has been five hours for the past two years – and will be again for WrestleMania 34 this year.
WrestleMania 32
Main Card Length: 4 hours, 51 minutes, 5 seconds
Total Bell to Bell Action, Main Card: 2 hours, 18 minutes, 48 seconds
“Wasted” Time: 2 hours, 33 minutes, 7 seconds
Average Match Length: 13 minutes, 42 seconds
After a pretty good, if not wasteful, WrestleMania 31, WWE came back a year later with a relative dud. Some of the show was pretty good, like the Intercontinental Championship ladder match (but Zack Ryder? really?) and the Women’s Championship triple threat. But an overly predictable and lousy main event was the rotten cherry on top of the pile of meh in Dallas.
Because the show was extended to just about five hours, the waste was a bit more apparent. There was more actual wrestling on the card than at WrestleMania 31 – only 52.5% of the show was devoted to non-wrestling. That number would have been slightly higher, had The Rock not defeated Erick Rowan in a mere six seconds.
Some of the “waste” was understandable – with a Hell in a Cell match on the card, there needed to be time to lower the cell, set up the crash pads for Shane’s dive, and clear away the wreckage after the fact. Still, giving Dwayne Johnson a live mic in 2016 should have been a clear sign that time was about to be wasted – when was the last time The Rock was succinct in a promo?
Surprisingly, there were no real stand-alone musical performances at WrestleMania 32. Besides America the Beautiful before the show, and Snoop Dogg performing Sasha Banks to the ring, nothing.
WrestleMania 33
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.
WrestleMania 34
Projected Main Card Length: 5 hours
Scheduled Matches on Main Card: 10
Projected Average Match Length: 14 minutes
Total Projected Match Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Projected “Wasted” Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
If we take the previous four WrestleMania events as a guideline, we can figure out just how much time will be spent inside the ring this year. We know WWE has five hours set aside for the main card on Sunday. There’s always a chance that things run late, like last year, but man, going past midnight again would be rough. The match quality should be far superior to last year, but most of the “running late” was the Undertaker’s grand exit.
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Try to figure out just how WWE will fill that near three hours of non-wrestling time, too. There’s got to be about 10-15 minutes set aside for the Hall of Fame – a recap of the induction ceremony, plus introductions of the new class. Roughly all of the major matches will have a 3-5 minute video package explaining the feud to the casuals – so that’s another 45 minutes or so right there.
There’s going to be a Kid Rock performance, I can feel it in my bones. The Kick Off Show – with both battle royals and the Cruiserweight Championship match – will get a recap, and you know something will happen with the two battle royal winners and some celebrity in attendance. Throw in a John Cena segment where the Undertaker takes twenty minutes to get to the ring, and the show fills up pretty quickly.
But has WrestleMania gotten too big? Personally, we have to see how this year’s show goes to truly answer that. Looking at the previous Network Era shows, though, it’s a pretty safe bet to say yes. With all the great talent on the roster, you’d think a spot on the actual WrestleMania show could be found for most of what happens on the Kick Off Show.
If WrestleMania truly is the Super Bowl of WWE, then most of the proceedings should be centered around wrestling, like the Super Bowl is about football. There’s no games on the pre-game show for the Super Bowl, and the entertainment is limited to commercial breaks and halftime. Does Pitbull perform after a touchdown during the Super Bowl? Nope.
Next: 25 Greatest WrestleMania Moments
Do you agree that WrestleMania is too big?