Match Times: WWE Extreme Rules 2015 Edition

WWE's Extreme Rules 2015 lasted for 2 hours 58 minutes and 3 seconds (2h 58m 03s). 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 21s: WWE's "Then, Now, Forever" opening
• 2m 21s: Video hyping Extreme Rules 2015
• 0m 47s: Opening pyro as Cole welcomes you to Extreme Rules 2015
• 2m 26s: Pre-match for Ambrose vs Harper
• 8m 01s: Ambrose vs Harper - Part 1
• 1m 09s: Post-match for Ambrose vs Harper - Part 1
• 2m 43s: Backstage segment with Triple H, Kane, and Rollins
• 3m 27s: Pre-match for Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 9m 16s: Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 7m 26s: Post-match for Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 1m 36s: Commercial for new content on WWE Network
• 0m 38s: Commentators hype new content on WWE Network
• 3m 17s: Pre-match for Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 9m 37s: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 1m 59s: Post-match for Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 1m 05s: Expert panel analysis with Saxton, Booker T, and Graves
• 0m 57s: Video recap of Barrett vs Neville from the pre-show
• 0m 56s: Backstage New Day promo
  
• 3m 39s: Ambrose vs Harper - Part 2
• 1m 59s: Post-match for Ambrose vs Harper - Part 2
• 0m 31s: Commercial for Payback 2015
• 0m 09s: Filler commentary
• 9m 50s: Pre-match for Cena vs Rusev
• 13m 36s: Cena vs Rusev
• 1m 31s: Post-match for Cena vs Rusev
• 0m 31s: Commercial for Mountain Dew
• 0m 36s: Commercial for Jericho's podcast with Stephanie McMahon
• 1m 03s: Backstage Reigns promo
• 2m 46s: Pre-match for Nikki vs Naomi
• 7m 18s: Nikki vs Naomi
• 1m 23s: Post-match for Nikki vs Naomi
• 0m 40s: Backstage segment with Rusev and Lana
• 0m 19s: Filler commentary
• 5m 45s: Pre-match for Reigns vs Big Show
• 19m 46s: Reigns vs Big Show
• 1m 57s: Post-match for Reigns vs Big Show
• 0m 31s: Video - WWE for the hero in all of us
• 0m 33s: Commercial for The Marine 4
• 1m 20s: Backstage segment with Kane and Orton
• 0m 37s: Filler commentary mostly hyping Tough Enough
• 1m 30s: Video clips of fans applying for Tough Enough
• 0m 20s: Lawler instructs fans on rules for Tough Enough video entries
• 3m 45s: In-ring segment: Ryback beats up Bo Dallas
• 1m 35s: Commercial for new content on WWE Network
• 1m 05s: Commentators hype new content on WWE Network
• 0m 57s: Backstage promo with Rusev and Lana
• 10m 38s: Pre-match for Rollins vs Orton
• 21m 02s: Rollins vs Orton
• 2m 49s: Post-match for Rollins vs Orton

Match Times

The 7 matches combined for a total time of 1h 32m 15s. This means that 51.8% of the show was devoted to bell-to-bell action.  This is the 20th highest percentage in this category out of the 28 WWE PPV events since the start of 2013.

Here is the sorted list of match times for Extreme Rules 2015:

• 21m 02s: Rollins vs Orton
• 19m 46s: Reigns vs Big Show
• 13m 36s: Cena vs Rusev
• 11m 40s: Ambrose vs Harper
• 9m 37s: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 9m 16s: Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 7m 18s: Nikki vs Naomi

WWE was really trying to make my life difficult with their booking of the street fight between Ambrose and Harper.  I have the match time listed above as 11m 40s.  That is the sum of the two distinct televised segments of the match.

However sticking purely within kayfabe terms, their match technically continued after Harper and Ambrose drove away from the arena, because that's allowed in a street fight.  Even though a large part of the match after that point wasn't televised and had no referee on hand to witness any potential falls, this all still counts as part of the match in the world of kayfabe.  Therefore the actual match time in the record books is much closer to 55m 46s, which would make it one of the longest matches in recent WWE history.

But the main purpose of this Match Times series is to see how WWE divides a finite amount of time (typically 3 hours) for a PPV across every match and segment.  Therefore I am going to ignore the kayfabe records on this one and stick with 11m 40s as the match time, because that's how much overall show time the match accounted for on this 3-hour block of time dedicated to Extreme Rules 2015.

The only other thing that stood out about the match times on this card is that this was John Cena's shortest match time on PPV since the start of 2013.

It's also worth noting that this is the second straight PPV where every match scored at least 2.25 stars from Dave Meltzer.  The lowest rated match on the card was the Russian Chain match between Cena and Rusev.  This is the first time since the start of 2013 that Cena had the lowest rated match on a PPV.

The tag team match scored 3.75 stars even though it lasted under 10 minutes.  That makes it the highest rated under 10 minute match on WWE PPV since the start of 2013.

Finally, there was a lengthy wait of 24m 48s between the end of the Last Man Standing match and the start of the Steel Cage match.  The in-ring segment featuring Ryback and Bo Dallas was thrown in there, so it's not like the show was completely devoid of action in that time.  But it is still a pretty long time to wait between match times.

Pre-match Segments

The pre-match segments combined for a total time of 38m 09s, which is 21.4% of the show.  This is the 17th highest percentage in this category out of the 28 WWE PPV events since the start of 2013.

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

• 10m 38s: Rollins vs Orton
• 9m 50s: Cena vs Rusev
• 5m 45s: Reigns vs Big Show
• 3m 27s: Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 3m 17s: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 2m 46s: Nikki vs Naomi
• 2m 26s: Ambrose vs Harper

Extreme Rules 2015 included 15 separate pre-match superstar entrances.  These 15 entrances took up a total time of 18m 39s.  Here is the sorted list of these 15 entrance times:

• 1m 51s: Randy Orton (with a 0m 15s plug for Payback 2015)
  
• 1m 42s: Sheamus (with a 0m 35s Raw recap of the Sheamus heel turn)
  
• 1m 39s: Naomi (with a 0m 39s Raw recap of Naomi's heel turn)
  
• 1m 39s: Seth Rollins
• 1m 31s: Rusev with Lana
• 1m 24s: John Cena (with a 0m 09s plug for Mountain Dew)
  
• 1m 19s: Dolph Ziggler (with a 0m 13s intro of Spanish announcers; 0m 18s Ziggler tweet)
  
• 1m 12s: Roman Reigns
• 1m 11s: Dean Ambrose (with a 0m 18s intro of Cole's announce team; 0m 18s video recap of feud)
  
• 1m 03s: Nikki Bella with Brie
• 1m 02s: New Day (with a 0m 19s plug for WWE Immortals)
  
• 0m 56s: Big Show (with a 0m 15s plug for Hulu)
  
• 0m 51s: Cesaro and Kidd with Natalya (with a 0m 18s look at a tweet from Kidd)
  
• 0m 42s: Kane
• 0m 37s: Luke Harper

There were 2 other superstar entrances that occurred outside of pre-match segments.  When you add on those entrance times for Ryback (0m 42s) and Bo Dallas (0m 15s) it results in a total entrance time of 19m 36s for the entire show.

In addition to entrances, the pre-match segments also featured 3 extended video packages.  The video packages for Orton versus Rollins (3m 39s), Reigns versus Big Show (2m 47s), and Cena versus Rusev (3m 19s) add up to 9m 45s.

So when you combine the 15 pre-match entrances (18m 39s) and the 3 dedicated video packages (9m 45s) that accounts for 28m 24s of the overall pre-match segment time for the show.

There was a 0m 19s pre-match brawl between Ambrose and Harper before the bell rang to start the match.

It took the referee about 1m 00s to attach Cena and Rusev together with the chain right before their match started.  This was mostly due to Rusev being grumpy and not complying with the referee.

Post-match Segments

The post-match segments combined for a total time of 20m 13s, which is 11.4% of the show.  This is the 7th highest percentage in this category out of the 28 WWE PPV events since the start of 2013.

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

• 7m 26s: Ziggler vs Sheamus
• 3m 08s: Ambrose vs Harper
• 2m 49s: Rollins vs Orton
• 1m 59s: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day
• 1m 57s: Reigns vs Big Show
• 1m 31s: Cena vs Rusev
• 1m 23s: Nikki vs Naomi

The post-match segment time for Ziggler versus Sheamus was the 4th longest out of 200 PPV matches since the start of 2013.  Brock Lesnar's conquering of Undertaker's streak at WrestleMania 30 as well as Lensar's beatdown of Big Show at Royal Rumble 2014 are two of the memorable post-match segments that outlasted this one.

Miscellaneous Segments

That leaves about 15.4% (27m 26s) of the show for everything else.  This is the 9th highest percentage in this category out of the 28 WWE PPV events since the start of 2013.

3m 45s of this time was used on the in-ring segment featuring Ryback and Bo Dallas.

7m 39s of this time was used on numerous backstage segments or promos featuring stars such as Kane, Rusev, Lana, Orton, Rollins, Triple H, Reigns, and New Day.

5m 30s of this time was spent promoting new content on WWE Network this week.

The remaining miscellaneous time went to things like the expert panel segment, a video recap of the pre-show match between Neville and Barrett, commercials for The Marine 4 and Mountain Dew, hype for Tough Enough, 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.

• 34m 29s: Rollins vs Orton (19.4% of total show time)
  
• 27m 28s: Reigns vs Big Show (15.4%)
  
• 24m 57s: Cena vs Rusev (14.0%)
  
• 20m 09s: Ziggler vs Sheamus (11.3%)
  
• 17m 14s: Ambrose vs Harper (9.7%)
  
• 14m 53s: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day (8.4%)
  
• 11m 27s: Nikki vs Naomi (6.4%)
  

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%.

• 72.0%: Reigns vs Big Show (19m 46s match, 7m 42s pre + post)
  
• 67.7%: Ambrose vs Harper (11m 40s match, 5m 34s pre + post)
  
• 64.6%: Cesaro and Kidd vs New Day (9m 37s match, 5m 16s pre + post)
  
• 63.8%: Nikki vs Naomi (7m 18s match, 4m 09s pre + post)
  
• 61.0%: Rollins vs Orton (21m 02s match, 13m 27s pre + post)
  
• 54.5%: Cena vs Rusev (13m 36s match, 11m 21s pre + post)
  
• 46.0%: Ziggler vs Sheamus (9m 16s match, 10m 53s pre + post)

Extreme Rules 2015 included a little more miscellaneous segment time and post-match segment time (thanks to the "Kiss Me Arse" match) than the typical WWE PPV over the last couple of years.  Even with that said, the match time bounced back up above the 50.0% mark for the first time since Royal Rumble 2015.

This was also the third straight PPV that came within two minutes up filling up the entire final hour with content, which is a great thing to see.

Final Results for Extreme Rules 2015

Match - 51.8% - 1h 32m 15s

Pre-match - 21.4% - 38m 09s

Post-match - 11.4% - 20m 13s

Miscellaneous - 15.4% - 27m 26s