WWE Rumors: How many matches will be on the WrestleMania 36 card?

Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair, John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt, and Drew McIntyre vs. Brock Lesnar have been among the matches already announced for WWE WrestleMania 36. But could the card surpass the 14 matches from last year’s Show of Shows?

Wrestling fans who still complain about the length of WrestleMania cards should probably wise up and give up by now. WrestleMania has become an even more lavish celebration of Vince McMahon’s “Sports Entertainment”, as it is a spectacle that combines both the best of professional wrestling and the wackiness of WWE into a day-long affair.

And with more talent than ever on the Raw and SmackDown rosters – and now with NXT becoming a prominent part of the show with a title on the line for the first time – it only makes sense for the show to have more matches and go on for longer.

According to the Wrestling Observer News’ Dave Meltzer, via Cageside Seats’ Rumor Roundup, the WrestleMania 36 card is now expected to contain 16 matches as opposed to the 14 that Meltzer initially reported.

It’s unclear if Meltzer is including the pre-show here. If he is, then 16 matches would equal the total of 16 matches we saw at WrestleMania 35; there were 12 matches on the “main card” and four on the “pre-show”. So 14 matches on the main card would have been an extension of last year’s show, making 16 a further extension of the show.

But it’s more likely that WWE are adjusting the card to have exactly as many matches as last year. Note that at TLC and the Royal Rumble, they seemed to be moving back in the direction of “less is more”, and while “more is more” is usually the tagline at WrestleMania, most fans would prefer to see WWE focus on extending the quality of the matches rather than the quantity of the matches at the Show of Shows.

Sticking with 16 matches will mean another long WrestleMania, but only a minority of fans will be complaining, especially since the quality should be at a high standard. It will be exciting to see which other superstars get a chance at showing the world what they can do on the Grandest Stage of Them All this year, and enough of those matches, such as Goldberg’s title defense, should be quick enough to allow meatier stories time to develop.