Match Times: WWE Payback 2015 Edition

WWE's Payback 2015 lasted for 2 hours 53 minutes and 9 seconds (2h 53m 09s). 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" segments include video packages, entrances, ring introductions, and any verbal promos that occur right before a match officially begins. The "post-match" segments include any celebrations, replays, angles, attacks, or promos that occur right after a match is finished.

• 0m 20s: WWE's "Then, Now, Forever" opening
• 2m 07s: Video hyping Payback 2015
• 0m 47s: Opening video as Cole welcomes you to Payback 2015
• 3m 11s: Pre-match for Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 12m 22s: Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 1m 38s: Post-match for Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 2m 53s: Backstage segment with Kane and Rollins
• 0m 41s: Commercial for NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable
• 4m 48s: Pre-match for New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 2m 48s: Fall #1: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 5m 25s: Fall #2: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 4m 28s: Fall #3: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 1m 20s: Post-match for New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 0m 36s: Commercial for Elimination Chamber 2015
• 1m 09s: Backstage Ryback promo
• 0m 16s: Plug for PPV theme song
• 5m 58s: Pre-match for Wyatt vs Ryback
• 10m 53s: Wyatt vs Ryback
• 1m 04s: Post-match for Wyatt vs Ryback
• 0m 33s: Commercial for Money In The Bank 2015
• 1m 07s: Commercial and commentator hype for Austin's podcast with Heyman
• 7m 50s: Pre-match for Cena vs Rusev
• 28m 01s: Cena vs Rusev
• 2m 10s: Post-match for Cena vs Rusev
• 1m 45s: Expert panel analysis with Renee, Booker T, and Graves
• 0m 54s: Video recap of pre-show match between Meta Powers and The Ascension
• 2m 07s: Backstage New Day promo
• 2m 11s: Pre-match for Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina
• 6m 13s: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina
• 1m 01s: Post-match for Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina
• 0m 47s: Commercial for Swerved
• 0m 54s: Backstage segment with Rusev and Lana
• 0m 31s: Filler commentary
• 2m 48s: Raw Recap: Bryan vacates the Intercontinental Championship
• 0m 28s: Commentators hype Elimination Chamber 2015
• 2m 40s: Pre-match for Neville vs King Barrett
• 7m 23s: Neville vs King Barrett
• 4m 12s: Post-match for Neville vs King Barrett
• 0m 23s: Commentators hype Tough Enough
• 1m 37s: Tough Enough application videos
• 0m 25s: Backstage segment with Kane and Rollins
• 11m 30s: Pre-match for Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton
• 20m 51s: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton
• 2m 04s: Post-match for Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton

Match Times

The 7 matches combined for a total time of 1h 38m 24s. This means that 56.8% of the show was devoted to bell-to-bell action.  This is the 9th highest percentage in this category out of the 29 WWE PPV events in my data set, which begins with Royal Rumble 2013.

Here is the sorted list of match times for Payback 2015:

• 28m 01s: Cena vs Rusev
• 20m 51s: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton
• 12m 41s: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 12m 22s: Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 10m 53s: Wyatt vs Ryback
• 7m 23s: Neville vs King Barrett
• 6m 13s: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina

The timing of the tag team title match had me scratching my head and going back and forth on the best way to handle it.  Typically these 2 out of 3 falls matches include some kind of obvious waiting period between falls, and in the past I have not counted that waiting period as part of the match time.

But this time the match didn't appear to have any clear timing boundaries for waiting periods between falls.  Xavier Woods argued with the referee about using Freebird Rules right after the first fall was decided, until Natalya pulled him off the apron and the action between the teams continued.  Then after Kidd was pinned for the second fall, Kofi didn't wait long before attempting to pin Kidd again for the third fall.  The commentators even noted that it was unconventional for the referee to not give Kidd more time to recover.

There is definitely ambiguity here when it comes to timing the waiting period between falls, and so for now I decided to include all of it as match time.  In other words, I just kept the clock going and didn't include any waiting periods.

One alternate method I considered would be to start the clock for the next fall when physicality was once again initiated between the teams.

With that alternate scoring method in mind, the waiting period between the first two falls would have been about 0m 21s, and the waiting period between the final two falls would have been roughly 0m 27s.  So I could see an argument for reducing the match time by about 0m 48s, which would lower the match time from 12m 41s to 11m 53s.

Cena's match time of 28m 01s is the longest match time for any 1-on-1 match in my data set, beating out Ambrose versus Wyatt from TLC 2014.

There was no action in Cena's match for the first 1m 44s of the fight.  Instead the match began with the referee immediately asking Cena if he wanted to quit, and Cena waited a long time before responding.

Pre-match Segments

The pre-match segments combined for a total time of 38m 08s, which is 22.0% of the show.  This is the 15th highest percentage in this category out of the 29 events in my data set.

Here is the sorted list of pre-match segment time for all 7 matches:

• 11m 30s: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton
• 7m 50s: Cena vs Rusev
• 5m 58s: Wyatt vs Ryback
• 4m 48s: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 3m 11s: Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 2m 40s: Neville vs King Barrett
• 2m 11s: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina

Payback 2015 included 17 separate pre-match superstar entrances.  These 17 entrances took up a total time of 24m 10s.  Here is the sorted list of these 17 entrance times:

• 3m 22s: New Day (with a 2m 56s New Day promo)
  
• 2m 05s: Sheamus (with a 0m 16s intro of Cole's announce team and a 0m 43s recap of Ziggler kissing ass)
  
• 1m 45s: Bray Wyatt
• 1m 39s: Rusev with Lana
• 1m 36s: King Barrett (with a 0m 39s video recap of his victory at King of the Ring)
  
• 1m 30s: John Cena
• 1m 25s: Cesaro and Kidd with Natalya (with a 0m 22s plug for WWE Immortals)
  
• 1m 25s: Roman Reigns
• 1m 25s: Seth Rollins with J & J Security (with a 0m 14s plug for Money In The Bank 2015)
  
• 1m 13s: Ryback (with a 0m 15s plug for Hulu)
  
• 1m 10s: Randy Orton
• 1m 07s: Naomi and Tamina (with a 0m 32s Raw recap of Tamina's return)
  
• 0m 58s: Bella Twins (with a 0m 24s plug for NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable)
  
• 0m 58s: Neville
• 0m 57s: Dolph Ziggler (with a 0m 11s intro of Spanish announce team)
  
• 0m 49s: Kane
• 0m 46s: Dean Ambrose

The New Day's entrance time was mostly filled with a lengthy promo where they talked trash about the people in Baltimore.

In addition to entrances, the pre-match segments also featured 3 extended video packages.  The video packages for Wyatt versus Ryback (2m 17s), Cena versus Rusev (2m 59s), and the main event (3m 23s) add up to 8m 39s.

So when you combine the 17 pre-match entrances (24m 10s) and the 3 dedicated video packages (8m 39s) that accounts for 32m 49s of the overall pre-match segment time for the show.

The pre-match segment time for the main event was the 13th longest out of the 214 pre-match segments in my data set.  In fact it was longer than 3 of the 7 match times on the Payback 2015 card.

Post-match Segments

The post-match segments combined for a total time of 13m 29s, which is 7.8% of the show.  This is the 23rd highest percentage in this category out of the 29 events in my data set.

Here is the sorted list of the post-match segment time for all 7 matches:

• 4m 12s: Neville vs King Barrett
• 2m 10s: Cena vs Rusev
• 2m 04s: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton
• 1m 38s: Sheamus vs Ziggler
• 1m 20s: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd
• 1m 04s: Wyatt vs Ryback
• 1m 01s: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina

The post-match segment for Neville versus Barrett is the 29th longest out of the 214 post-match segments in my data set.

18 out of the 214 matches in my data set have a post-match segment that was actually longer than its corresponding pre-match segment, and this includes Neville versus Barrett. The post-match segment for Neville's match was 92 seconds longer than its pre-match segment, and this is the 6th biggest difference out of these 18 matches.

Last month's post-match ass-kissing angle with Sheamus and Ziggler at Extreme Rules 2015 tops that list; its post-match segment was 3m 59s longer than its pre-match segment.

No post-match replays were shown for the divas tag team match.

18 out of the 214 post-match segments in my data set lasted under sixty seconds.  Wyatt versus Ryback (64 seconds)  and the divas tag team match (61 seconds) just barely missed the cut for that list.

Miscellaneous Segments

That leaves about 13.4% (23m 08s) of the show for everything else.  This is the 12th highest percentage in this category out of the 29 events in my data set.

7m 28s of this time was used on numerous backstage segments or promos featuring stars such as Kane, Ryback, Rollins, New Day, Rusev, and Lana.

2m 18s was spent hyping upcoming events such as Elimination Chamber, Money In The Bank, and NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable.

Another 2m 00s was given to Tough Enough hype and videos.

The remaining miscellaneous time went to things like the expert panel segment, a Raw recap video, a recap of the pre-show match, promotion of Austin's podcast with Heyman, a commercial for Swerved, filler commentary, and so forth.

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.

• 38m 01s: Cena vs Rusev (22.0% of total show time)
• 34m 25s: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton (19.9%)
• 18m 49s: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd (10.9%)
• 17m 55s: Wyatt vs Ryback (10.3%)
• 17m 11s: Sheamus vs Ziggler (9.9%)
• 14m 15s: Neville vs King Barrett (8.2%)
• 9m 25s: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina (5.4%)

And here is a look at the "Match Time Percentage" for each match.  For any given match, this percentage shows how the match time compares to the combined pre-match and post-match segment time.  For some context, it's good to know that the median result here over the last couple of years is roughly 63%.

• 73.7%: Cena vs Rusev (28m 01s match, 10m 00s pre + post)
  
• 72.0%: Sheamus vs Ziggler (12m 22s match, 4m 49s pre + post)
  
• 67.4%: New Day vs Cesaro and Kidd (12m 41s match, 6m 08s pre + post)
  
• 66.0%: Bella Twins vs Naomi and Tamina (6m 13s match, 3m 12s pre + post)
  
• 60.7%: Wyatt vs Ryback (10m 53s match, 7m 02s pre + post)
  
• 60.6%: Rollins vs Ambrose vs Reigns vs Orton (20m 51s match, 13m 34s pre + post)
  
• 51.8%: Neville vs King Barrett (7m 23s match, 6m 52s pre + post)

Payback 2015 included a little more match time than the typical WWE PPV over the last few years, mostly thanks to the very lengthy "I Quit" match between Cena and Rusev.  Approximately 38m 01s of the total show time was devoted to this match, and that is the 15th highest score out of the 214 matches in my data set.

It's also worth noting that none of WWE's PPV events in 2015 have included more than 7 matches on the main card.  For comparison's sake, 13 of the 24 PPV events from 2013 to 2014 included 8 matches on the main card.

Final Results for Payback 2015

Match - 56.8% - 1h 38m 24s

Pre-match - 22.0% - 38m 08s

Post-match - 7.8% - 13m 29s

Miscellaneous - 13.4% - 23m 08s