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Pros and Cons of WrestleMania Being Two Nights Going Forward

By Anthony Mahon

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 04: Bill Goldberg attends WWE 20th Anniversary Celebration Marking Premiere of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX at Staples Center on October 04, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 04: Bill Goldberg attends WWE 20th Anniversary Celebration Marking Premiere of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX at Staples Center on October 04, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images) /
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Pro: More Nights, More Wrestlers

Every year, deserving performers are left out of Wrestlemania plans. Sometimes, that includes wrestlers who were returning from injury and cleared to compete but withheld from the show in favor of a fresh start on TV later that week. Other times, wrestlers simply don’t make the show and in recent years, they’re jam-packed into Kickoff battle royals or multi-man main card matches.

To put it into perspective, Dolph Ziggler’s match against Otis at WrestleMania was the former’s first one-on-one match in his nine appearances at the event. While that is a testament to the level of talent on the roster that a two-time World champion has a grand total of one singles WrestleMania match, it also shows how difficult it is for performers to get featured spots on the card.

Raw and Smackdown’s rosters have stacked WrestleMania cards on their own. Rhea Ripley’s performance against Charlotte could be a sign that NXT’s involvement on the show could very much evolve from filling up Kickoff battle royal slots in the future, which means three rosters worth of talent to fit on the card.

Making the show two nights long increases the likelihood that wrestlers can not only be featured at WrestleMania but extend their roles on the show beyond battle royals.

Pro: More fleshed-out in-ring stories

On the Brodie Lee edition of Talk is Jericho, the “Exalted One” referenced his match with Erick Rowan against The Usos and The New Day for how difficult it is to get time to tell a story at WrestleMania while the former AEW Champ brought up his match against William Regal.

Every year, there’s at least one or two matches at WrestleMania that could’ve benefitted from having the time to tell a proper story that they would on TV or a standard pay-per-view.

All the high quality video packages and extravagant entrances definitely boost the show but it also eats away at match time.

At WrestleMania, it is the stories that ultimately drive emotional investment. Making it a two night show allows more time for these stories to be told in the ring.

Pro: Potential for lower overall run time per night

The first night of WrestleMania wasn’t perfect but did feature a compelling Triple Threat Ladder match, Owens vs. Rollins and the heavily praised Boneyard match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles.

The image of “The Deadman” riding into the night concluded the first half of WrestleMania at roughly three hours. This was a refreshing change of pace compared to the run time of other big WWE shows.

Last year’s WrestleMania—including Kickoff matches—clocked in at over 7 hours total. Even SummerSlam and to a lesser extent, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series’ overall run-time rivals that of some pre and early Network era WrestleManias.

At eight matches per half, there was less of a need to jam-pack more than a dozen matches onto one night’s worth of wrestling and instead, the show was evenly spaced out. That trend could continue for future WrestleManias but also potentially fall into a trap.