How much wrestling actually happened at Revolution 2023?

AEW featured eight total matches on the main card of Revolution 2023 (Mar. 5) in San Francisco, California.

The main card of this pay-per-view (PPV) lasted 3 hours, 49 minutes, and 1 second (3h 49m 01s). Here is a sorted list of the bell-to-bell times for the eight matches that took place during this event:

• 65m 17s: MJF vs. Bryan Danielson
• 26m 04s: Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley
• 17m 57s: The Elite vs. House of Black
• 14m 48s: Jungle Boy vs. Christian Cage
• 13m 49s: Ricky Starks vs. Chris Jericho
• 13m 21s: The Gunns vs. The Acclaimed vs. Jarrett & Lethal vs. Cassidy & Danhausen
• 10m 40s: Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow
• 10m 04s: Jamie Hayter vs. Ruby Soho vs. Saraya

These times add up to 2h 52m 00s, which is roughly 75.1% of the show.

The overall match time percentage for all 19 AEW PPVs is 65.1%. For comparison’s sake, the overall match time percentage for all 138 WWE PPVs since the start of 2013 is 53.7%.

I timed the Iron Man match in two different segments and added the results together to calculate an overall match time. The standard portion of the match clocked in at 60m 02s, and sudden death lasted an additional 5m 15s.

In order to find room on the PPV for such a long match, Tony Khan cut out other potential matches from the card altogether; the last time an AEW PPV main card featured less than nine total matches was two years ago at Revolution 2021.

Even with that tradeoff, AEW still kept some of the undercard matches shorter than usual to save time. AEW PPVs typically feature several matches in the 15 to 20 minute range but that wasn’t really the case here.

The Texas Death match between Jon Moxley and Hangman Page is another one that went very long, even though it’s easy to overlook its time given the extreme length of the main event.

This wasn’t a great night to showcase women’s wrestling in AEW. Only one of the eight matches featured the women’s division, and it was the shortest match of the night.

AEW commentator Excalibur signed off at the end of the night by saying the following:

“Thank you for joining us here tonight for Revolution. AEW is the home of professional wrestling!”

The overall match time percentage of 75.1% for Revolution 2023 lends some credence to those words. It’s the highest mark I have ever recorded for any WWE or AEW PPV, including all the recent Royal Rumble events that each feature two matches of roughly 60 minutes in length.

Here are the match time percentages for the previous AEW events, in chronological order:

• 54.8%: Double or Nothing 2019
• 60.2%: Fyter Fest 2019
• 58.8%: Fight for the Fallen 2019
• 62.4%: All Out 2019
• 66.5%: Full Gear 2019
• 57.8%: Revolution 2020
• 65.0%: Double or Nothing 2020
• 65.7%: All Out 2020
• 63.6%: Full Gear 2020
• 65.1%: Revolution 2021
• 70.1%: Double or Nothing 2021
• 62.3%: All Out 2021
• 71.9%: Full Gear 2021
• 69.3%: Revolution 2022
• 65.7%: Double or Nothing 2022
• 65.9%: Forbidden Door
• 64.9%: All Out 2022
• 68.3%: Full Gear 2022

Are you surprised by any of these results, Cagesiders? Which of these matches received less (or more) time than you hoped for?