WWE Survivor Series 2014: Match Times

WWE's Survivor Series 2014 lasted for 2 hours 59 minutes and 11 seconds (2h 59m 11s). Here is a breakdown of the timing for every single second of the show, in chronological order.

The matches are in bold. The "pre-match" includes video packages, entrances, ring introductions, and any verbal promos that occur right before a match officially begins. The "post-match" includes any celebrations, replays, angles, attacks, or promos that occur right after a match is finished.

• 0m 20s: WWE's "Then, Now, Forever" opening
• 2m 18s: Video hyping Survivor Series 2014
• 0m 55s: Opening pyro as Cole welcomes us to Survivor Series 2014
• 11m 52s: In-ring segment featuring Mr. McMahon, The Authority, and John Cena
• 0m 52s: Filler commentary with intro of Spanish announce team
• 4m 51s: Pre-match for Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match
• 15m 24s: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match
• 2m 12s: Post-match for Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match
• 0m 41s: Video promoting Larry The Cable Guy on Raw tomorrow
• 0m 46s: Video promoting Austin's upcoming podcast with Vince McMahon
• 1m 59s: Backstage segment with Rose, The Bunny, Slater, Titus, and WWE toys
• 2m 56s: Pre-match for Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match
• 14m 23s: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match
• 0m 59s: Post-match for Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match
• 0m 31s: Commercial for TLC 2014
• 0m 13s: Cole talks about St. Louis
• 0m 23s: Commentators hype WWE Network
• 1m 41s: Video recap of pre-show with Fandango's re-debut and Barrett's return
• 1m 33s: Expert Panel Analysis with Renee, Riley, Booker T, and Heyman
• 5m 45s: Pre-match for Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt (with a 2m 51s video package)
• 14m 00s: Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt
• 7m 09s: Post-match for Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt
• 0m 32s: Commercials for Kmart
• 3m 48s: Backstage segment with Team Authority
• 2m 00s: Pre-match for Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator
• 2m 36s: Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator
• 0m 50s: Post-match for Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator
• 0m 31s: Commercial for WWE Stack Down
• 0m 31s: Commercial for Jingle All The Way 2
• 2m 42s: Roman Reigns interview via satellite
• 1m 33s: Backstage segment with Team Cena
• 3m 42s: Pre-match for AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella
  
• 0m 35s: AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella
  
• 1m 20s: Post-match for AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella
  
• 0m 46s: Video promoting Austin's upcoming podcast with Vince McMahon
• 0m 29s: Commentators hype Austin's upcoming podcast with Vince McMahon
• 1m 18s: Replay of the Ambrose/Wyatt ending; their TLC match is announced
• 0m 29s: Filler commentary with a plug for TLC 2014
  
• 0m 12s: Plug for PPV theme song
• 14m 11s: Pre-match for Team Cena vs Team Authority (with a 4m 21s video package)
  
• 43m 07s: Team Cena vs Team Authority
• 6m 16s: Post-match for Team Cena vs Team Authority

Match Times

The 6 matches combined for a total time of 1h 30m 05s. This means that 50.3% of the show was devoted to bell-to-bell action, which is the third smallest percentage of 2014.

The average match time at Survivor Series 2014 was 15m 01s.  The median match time was 14m 12s.

Here is the sorted list of match times for Survivor Series 2014.  This also includes where each match currently ranks on the list of WWE's Longest PPV Match Times for 2014.

• 43m 07s: Team Cena vs Team Authority (2nd longest out of 78 total matches)
  
• 15m 24s: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match (24th)
  
• 14m 23s: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match (26th)
  
• 14m 00s: Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt (29th)
  
• 2m 36s: Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator (73rd)
  
• 0m 35s: AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella (75th)

WWE almost always includes between 90 to 100 minutes of total match time on their PPV events, and so that is very likely why the tag team championship match and the Divas tag team elimination match both went longer than normal.  It was obvious right from the beginning that WWE desperately needed to fill time on this show.

The match time of the main event was only 0m 40s shorter than the combined match times of the next three longest matches (43m 47s).

The bell to start the first match of the night did not ring until 21m 08s into the show.

Wyatt's promo took up 0m 46s of his total match time.  Dean Ambrose then held on to the chair mulling over his decision for about 0m 38s.

The Divas elimination tag team match was the longest divas match that WWE has put on PPV since at least the start of 2013.

Meltzer gave the Divas tag team match a score of one star, which is unusual for a match that long.  Since the start of 2013, the only other PPV matches to go at least 10 minutes and score under 2 stars include Orton vs Big Show (Survivor Series 2013), 7 Total Divas vs 7 Non Total Divas (Survivor Series 2013), Undertaker vs Lesnar (WrestleMania 30), and Cena vs Wyatt (Extreme Rules 2014).

This was the first time this year that Fernando and The Bunny received match time on the main card of a WWE PPV.

Randy Orton's streak of accumulating match time on 22 consecutive WWE PPV events came to a halt.  The active leader is now John Cena with 14 consecutive PPV events.

Here are the survival times for each wrestler in the elimination tag team matches:

• 14m 23s: Natalya, Emma, Naomi, Alicia, Paige
• 12m 07s: Summer Rae
• 9m 32s: Layla
• 6m 15s: Cameron

• 43m 07s: Dolph Ziggler, Seth Rollins
• 31m 34s: Luke Harper
• 29m 34s: Corporate Kane
• 26m 12s: Big Show
• 25m 13s: John Cena
• 24m 15s: Erick Rowan
• 21m 01s: Rusev
• 8m 10s: The Ryback
• 0m 50s: Mark Henry

The Big Show's elimination was never officially determined or announced, so there is plenty of room for error when deciding on his elimination time.

After Big Show caused Cena's elimination, he walked back up the ramp and left the arena.  I decided to use the time when he stepped through the curtain to the backstage area as his elimination mark.  He was never seen again on camera after that moment for the remainder of the show.

The referee's 10-count on Rusev actually lasted much closer to 0m 28s.

Dolph Ziggler must have nailed Seth Rollins with the most devastating zigzag of all-time.  Seth Rollins was knocked out for the final 6m 03s of the match before he was finally pinned.

Sting's entrance took up 1m 35s of the total match time.  Sting then engaged in a stare down with Triple H that lasted for 1m 54s before Triple H finally tried to punch him.

Pre-match Segments

The pre-match segments combined for a total time of 33m 25s, which is 18.6% of the show.

That is currently the second smallest percentage in this category in 2014.  The only other PPV to score less than 20.0% here is the Royal Rumble 2014.  One obvious factor here is that most WWE PPVs have 7 or 8 matches, but Survivor Series 2014 only had 6 matches.  Fewer matches means fewer pre-match segments, and this effect was amplified even more for a show like Royal Rumble 2014 where there were only 4 matches.

Here is the sorted list of pre-match segment time for all 6 matches:

• 14m 11s: Team Cena vs Team Authority
• 5m 45s: Ambrose vs Wyatt
• 4m 51s: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match
• 3m 42s: AJ vs Nikki
• 2m 56s: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match
• 2m 00s: Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator

This was the first PPV of the year where only one pre-match segment that went longer than 6m 00s.  WWE generally tries to hype up the biggest matches on each PPV with lengthy pre-match segments, so this further strengthens the idea that Survivor Series 2014 was basically a one-match card.

Survivor Series 2014 included 29 separate pre-match superstar entrances.  These 29 entrances took up a total time of 22m 15s.  Here is the sorted list of these 29 entrance times:

• 2m 01s: Nikki Bella with Brie (with a 0m 45s Raw recap and a 0m 29s Smackdown recap)
  
• 1m 41s: Gold and Stardust (with a 0m 16s ad for Mattel WWE Strikers and Kmart)
  
• 1m 19s: Bray Wyatt
• 1m 18s: Seth Rollins with Noble and Mercury
• 1m 16s: Rose and The Bunny with The Exotic Express
• 1m 09s: Los Matadores with El Torito
• 1m 03s: The Authority (with a 0m 14s plug for Vince appearing on the Fallout show)
  
• 1m 03s: John Cena
• 0m 54s: Dean Ambrose
• 0m 49s: AJ Lee (with a 0m 19s video recap of her pre-show interview)
  
• 0m 47s: The Usos
• 0m 47s: The Miz and Damien Mizdow
• 0m 44s: Rusev with Lana
• 0m 43s: The Ryback
• 0m 41s: Slater and The Gator (with a 0m 18s plug for Hulu)
  
• 0m 39s: Erick Rowan
• 0m 37s: Corporate Kane
• 0m 36s: Alicia Fox
• 0m 36s: Luke Harper
• 0m 33s: Dolph Ziggler
• 0m 32s: Big Show
• 0m 30s: Mark Henry
• 0m 20s: Natalya with Tyson Kidd
• 0m 18s: Paige
• 0m 18s: Cameron
• 0m 17s: Emma
• 0m 15s: Summer Rae
• 0m 15s: Naomi
• 0m 14s: Layla

It should be noted that there were 4 other entrances on the show that did not occur during pre-match segments.  This includes Sting's entrance (1m 35s) near the end of the main event.  This also includes the entrances in the opening segment of the show for Mr. McMahon (0m 57s), The Authority (1m 08s), and John Cena (0m 51s).  Mr. McMahon's entrance included a 0m 20s introduction of Cole's announce team.

When these other entrance times are combined with all of the pre-match entrance times listed above, it results in a total entrance time of 26m 46s for the event.

It also means that John Cena's two separate entrances on the show added up to 1m 54s, while The Authority's two entrances added up to 2m 11s.

It's not often that a diva receives the longest pre-match entrance time of the night, but that's exactly what Nikki Bella accomplished on this show.  The main reason for her extended entrance is that WWE aired both a Raw recap video and a Smackdown recap video of the impersonation storylines that took place in the prior week leading into Nikki's match.  These two videos took up 1m 14s of Nikki's total entrance time of 2m 01s.

The entrance times for just about all of the divas in their elimination tag match were kept extremely short.  The main reason Alicia's entrance time was about twice as long as the others is because she came out last, and so there was no rush to cut off her entrance music for another participant.

The 4m 21s dedicated video package that aired prior to the main event was the longest such video package on PPV this year.

Post-match Segments

The post-match segments combined for a total time of 18m 46s, which is 10.5% of the show.  This is pretty close to average for PPVs in 2014, and the result was propped up by two of the longest post-match segments of the year.

Here is the sorted list of the post-match segment time for all 6 matches:

• 7m 09s: Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt
• 6m 16s: Team Cena vs Team Authority
• 2m 12s: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match
• 1m 20s: AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella
• 0m 59s: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match
• 0m 50s: Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator

The post-match segments for Ambrose versus Wyatt and the main event were the 4th and 5th longest post-match segments of 2014.

In contrast, the post-match segment for Rose's match was the 2nd shortest of the year, and the post-match segment for the Divas elimination tag team match was the 5th shortest of the year.  Neither one of these matches even received the courtesy of a replay of the finish.

The post-match segment for the main event also did not feature any replays.  This could be strongly related to the fact that the show was running extremely long and nearing the very end of the typical three hour time slot.  This segment began with a 1m 54s celebration from Ziggler, and then concluded with a 4m 22s look at The Authority's reaction to losing.

Miscellaneous Segments

That leaves about 36m 55s (20.6%) of the show for everything else.  This is by far the highest percentage of the year in this category.  It is also the first time since the start of 2013 that a PPV included more Miscellaneous segment time than Pre-match segment time.

This includes commercials for Jingle All The Way 2, WWE Stack Down, Kmart, and TLC 2014.  There were also separate backstage segments featuring pep talks for Team Cena and Team Authority, as well as a backstage segment where Adam Rose and The Bunny played with WWE toys to set up their match for later in the show with Slater Gator.  This also includes videos to promote Larry The Cable Guy's appearance on Raw as well as  Austin's upcoming podcast with Vince McMahon.  The interview with Roman Reigns also fell into this category, as well as the expert panel analysis and a video recap of the pre-show.  Some of the remaining miscellaneous segments include the occasional filler commentary or hype, a plug for the PPV theme song, as well as the announcement of Ambrose versus Wyatt at TLC 2014.

And to top off this list is the 11m 52s opening segment in the ring with Mr. McMahon, The Authority, and John Cena, which also includes their entrance times.

WWE tried  for weeks to push the idea that WWE PPVs are very different from Raw, yet they strangely decided to start their PPV show with a talking segment just like a typical episode of Raw.

Summary

Here is a listing of how much total show time was allocated for each match when you add up all 3 components: pre-match time, match time, and post-match time.

• 1h 03m 34s: Team Cena vs Team Authority (35.5% of total show time)
• 26m 54s: Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt (15.0%)
• 22m 27s: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match (12.5%)
• 18m 18s: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match (10.2%)
• 5m 37s: AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella (3.1%)
• 5m 26s: Adam Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator (3.0%)
  

The total time allocated for the main event broke the one hour mark.  The only other match to accomplish that this year was the Royal Rumble match, which ended up with a total show time of 1h 05m 11s.  If you count the backstage pep talks for Team Authority and Team Cena that were scattered throughout hour two as part of this time, it would have actually beaten out the Royal Rumble match.  And that's still ignoring the initial talking segment of the show, which was entirely related to the main event as well.

The bottom two matches on this list are also the two shortest matches in this regard for the entire year.

It's pretty remarkable that WWE could find a way to cram a pre-match segment, full match, and post-match segment all in under 6m 00s twice on one PPV while also booking a DQ finish in the second biggest match on the card, as well as opening the show with a talking segment.  This show really did seem like a Sunday Night Raw prior to the main event.

Occasionally the combined pre-match and post-match segment time for a given match turns out to be greater than the actual match time.  This happened in Adam Rose's match as well as AJ's match.

With that idea in mind, here is how all six matches fared in this metric.  The list will be sorted by highest percentage of match time:

• 78.6%: Divas Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match (14m 23s match, 3m 55s pre + post)
  
• 68.6%: Tag Team Fatal 4-Way Match (15m 24s match, 7m 03s pre + post)
  
• 67.8%: Team Cena vs Team Authority (43m 07s match, 20m 27s pre + post)
  
• 52.0%: Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt (14m 00s match, 12m 54s pre + post)
  
• 47.9%: Rose and The Bunny vs Slater and The Gator (2m 36s match, 2m 50s pre + post)
  
• 10.4%: AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella (0m 35s match, 5m 02s pre + post)

Hourly Results

Here is an hourly breakdown showing how the pre-match, match, post-match, and miscellaneous segment times were scattered across each hour of the show.

Hour One - Includes Tag Team Fatal 4-Way and Divas Elimination Tag Team Match

• Match - 49.6% - 29m 47s
• Pre-match - 13.0% - 7m 47s
• Post-match - 4.5% - 2m 43s
• Miscellaneous - 32.9% - 19m 43s

Hour Two - Includes Ambrose vs Wyatt, Rose/Bunny vs Slater Gator, and AJ vs Nikki

• Match - 28.6% - 17m 11s
• Pre-match - 26.4% - 15m 50s
• Post-match - 16.3% - 9m 47s
• Miscellaneous - 28.7% - 17m 12s

Hour Three (actually 59m 11s) - Includes Team Cena vs Team Authority

• Match - 72.9% - 43m 07s
• Pre-match - 16.6% - 9m 48s
• Post-match - 10.6% - 6m 16s
• Miscellaneous - 0.0% - 0m 00s

WWE loaded up a lot of the miscellaneous segments into the second hour of the show.  This included some of the lengthier segments such as the interview with Roman Reigns, the backstage pep talks for Team Authority and Team Cena, the expert panel analysis segment, and the recap of the pre-show.  When you consider that the second hour also included two extremely short matches, it created an unfortunate situation where the match time of the second hour was no greater than the miscellaneous segment time for that hour.

Furthermore, this was the first hour of any PPV this year were the match time didn't even take up 20m 00s.  It is also the first time that the match time percentage for the hour was not the largest percentage out of these four categories.  This seems like an unacceptable timing flaw to me.

It is important to mention that the final hour lasted 59m 11s, which is about as long as it is ever going to get.  So while the show featured far too much filler, at least it was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the show used up nearly every second of its three hour time slot.

Final Results for Survivor Series 2014

Match - 50.3% - 1h 30m 05s

Pre-match - 18.6% - 33m 25s

Post-match - 10.5% - 18m 46s

Miscellaneous - 20.6% - 36m 55s