A quick scan of social media during Wrestlemania weekend showed widespread dissatisfaction from fans. Many were quick to point out that a Hulk Hogan documentary got more screentime than the Women’s Tag Team championship match. It felt like it got more time than most of the matches programmed each night individually.
Tuning in to the event, it was hard to ignore TKO’s corporate hands all over the programming. Matches came across as rushed and anticlimactic, as if they had to keep to a strict time limit to accommodate more promo videos and ads in between them. In fact, it could be argued that this Wrestlemania could’ve worked as a one-night show had it cut the fat and focused entirely on wrestling.
USA Today offered a breakdown of the time that was spent on each component of the show, from entrances and ads to matches. The two nights combined lasted a total of 7 hours and 28 minutes. Consider the numbers.
- Matches: 2 hours, 47 minutes and 4 seconds
- Entrances: 1 hour, 57 minutes and 30 seconds
- Ads: 1 hour, 27 minutes and 52 seconds
- Post-match activity: 43 minutes and 21 seconds
- Promos: 17 minutes and 10 seconds
- Intro: 8 minutes and 25 seconds
- Pre-match activity: 6 minutes and 38 seconds
While matches ultimately had the most time allotted to them out of all the other parts when taken as a separate category, summing up all the time to see how much was spent outside the ring tells a very different story.
In general, most matches lasted around 7-10 minutes, with the main events running up to 20 mins. A lot of titles changed each night, all of them signifying the beginning of a new overarching narrative that’ll affect bookings for months to come after ‘Mania. This should’ve led to matches worthy of the moment. Instead, they unfolded like regular fights, they kind we get on Smackdown and RAW.
As a result, there’s been little talk of “Wrestlemania moments.” Some point to Brock Lesnar’s surprise retirement after his loss to Oba Femi, while others think that Roman Reigns becoming champ once again is worthy of it. There hasn’t been much enthusiasm about this discussion online, though.
While premium pay-per-view prices have changed thanks to the migration of big monthly events to the ESPN app, fans still need to have an active subscription to enjoy these shows. Money is exchanged nonetheless, unless a free trial is available for some users. The experience shouldn’t be a slightly flashier episode of RAW on Netflix.
This goes against what was once the great promise of streaming. You paid a subscription fee to get your favorite programs without ad breaks. At this rate, we might as well have stuck with basic cable for our wrestling.
The focus on ad revenue means that premium events don’t really feel as such, which is especially sad for Wrestlemania. Wrestling’s biggest night has effectively turned into an overlong commercial for a product that people were already sold on. It’s not hard to miss the good old days, when a PPV show meant a largely uninterrupted stream of pure wrestling.
