WWE Fastlane 2017 match times stats breakdown

WWE's Fastlane 2017 lasted for 3 hours 5 minutes and 5 seconds (3h 05m 05s). 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.

Match Times

The 9 matches combined for a total time of 1h 30m 12s. This means that 48.7% of the show was devoted to bell-to-bell action. This is the 49th highest percentage in this category out of the 55 WWE pay-per-view (PPV) events in my data set, which begins with Royal Rumble 2013.

Here is the sorted list of match times for Fastlane 2017. This also includes where each match time ranks out of all 391 matches in my data set.

• 17m 14s: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman (103rd longest out of 391 matches)
• 16m 48s: Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair (113th)
• 12m 08s: Neville vs. Jack Gallagher (198th)
• 9m 46s: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe (251st)
• 8m 42s: Gallows & Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass (275th)
• 8m 41s: Big Show vs. Rusev (277th)
• 8m 19s: Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax (287th)
• 8m 11s: Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal (292nd)
• 0m 23s: Kevin Owens vs. Goldberg (387th)

Pre-match Segments

The pre-match segments combined for a total time of 50m 40s, which is 27.4% of the show. This is the 5th highest percentage in this category out of the 55 events in my data set.

Here is the sorted list of pre-match segment time for all 9 matches. For some context, keep in mind that the median pre-match segment time in my data set is 5m 19s and the average time is 5m 57s.

• 13m 53s: Kevin Owens vs. Goldberg
• 8m 01s: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
• 7m 55s: Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair
• 5m 00s: Gallows & Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass
• 4m 25s: Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal
• 4m 19s: Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax
• 3m 27s: Neville vs. Jack Gallagher
• 3m 00s: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe
• 0m 40s: Big Show vs. Rusev

4 matches received the special treatment of a dedicated video package right before superstar entrances. The videos hyping Sasha's match (1m 17s), Roman's match (4m 08s), Bayley’s match (3m 35s), and Goldberg's match (3m 31s) combined to take up 12m 31s of the pre-match segment time.

The pre-match segment for Golodberg’s match was longer than all but two of the 9 actual matches on the main card of Fastlane.

Post-match Segments

The post-match segments combined for a total time of 14m 53s, which is 8.0% of the show. This is the 40th highest percentage in this category out of the 55 events in my data set.

Here is the sorted list of the post-match segment time for all 9 matches. For some context, keep in mind that the median post-match segment time in my data set is 1m 59s and the average time is 2m 26s.

• 2m 36s: Kevin Owens vs. Goldberg
• 2m 33s: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
• 1m 54s: Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair
• 1m 36s: Neville vs. Jack Gallagher
• 1m 36s: Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax
• 1m 31s: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe
• 1m 23s: Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal
• 1m 06s: Gallows & Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass
• 0m 38s: Big Show vs. Rusev

Miscellaneous Segments

That leaves about 15.8% (29m 20s) of the show for everything else. This is the 11th highest percentage in this category out of the 55 events in my data set.

Most of these miscellaneous segments are crammed into the time after one post-match segment ends and before the next pre-match segment begins. Fastlane 2017 included 8 different blocks of miscellaneous segments. Here is how long each block lasted, in chronological order:

• Block 1: 3m 06s (Then Now Forever; Opening hype video and pyro)
• Block 2: 2m 50s (Ads for Tapout and WrestleMania; Backstage with Bayley)
• Block 3: 2m 43s (Ad for WWE Champions; Backstage with Foley & Steph)
• Block 4: 1m 47s (Hype for WWE Network & Raw Talk)
• Block 5: 4m 49s (Ads for KFC & WrestleMania; KO backstage; Aries’ video)
• Block 6: 8m 43s (Ad for Jetsons & WWE Shop; Heyman backstage; New Day segment)
• Block 7: 1m 47s (Ad for Ride Along; Backstage with Foley & Joe; PPV theme song)
• Block 8: 3m 35s (Hype for WrestleMania & Raw Talk; Raw recap)

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. This list also includes where each total time ranks among the 391 entries in my data set.

• 27m 48s: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman (104th longest out of 391 entries)
• 26m 37s: Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair (116th)
• 17m 11s: Neville vs. Jack Gallagher (235th)
• 16m 52s: Kevin Owens vs. Goldberg (238th)
• 14m 48s: Gallows & Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass (272nd)
• 14m 17s: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe (280th)
• 14m 14s: Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax (283rd)
• 13m 59s: Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal (288th)
• 9m 59s: Big Show vs. Rusev (359th)

Now 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 since 2013 is 63.0%.

(Here's an example calculation: an entry with a match time of 6m 00s, pre-match time of 3m 00s, and a post-match time of 1m 00s has a score of 60.0%, because the match time of 6m 00s is 60% of the total sum of 10m 00s for all three components.)

• 87.0%: Big Show vs. Rusev
• 70.6%: Neville vs. Jack Gallagher
• 68.4%: Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe
• 63.1%: Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair
• 62.0%: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
• 58.8%: Gallows & Anderson vs. Enzo & Big Cass
• 58.5%: Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal
• 58.4%: Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax
• 2.3%: Kevin Owens vs. Goldberg

Jinder and Rusev’s matches sort of bled into each other in terms of transitioning from the post-match segment for Jinder leading into the pre-match segment for Rusev. If those two matches were instead merged into one block of time, it would have scored a 70.4% on this metric.

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A couple days before Fastlane 2017 took place, I stated that the card probably needed more content because the originally advertised 7 matches would only fill roughly 80 minutes of match time. In reality those 7 matches only resulted in 73m 20s of match time, largely thanks to Zayn’s match falling about 6 minutes short of my prediction.

Therefore WWE did in fact need to add much more content to this card, and they did so with two extra matches (Cesaro vs. Jinder, Big Show vs. Rusev) and a talking segment in the arena from the New Day.

These three extra segments added nearly 30 minutes of content to the Fastlane card, and the event actually eclipsed the 3-hour mark as a result of this large amount of filler content.

Final Results for Fastlane 2017

Match - 48.7% - 1h 30m 12s

Pre-match - 27.4% - 50m 40s

Post-match - 8.0% - 14m 53s

Miscellaneous - 15.8% - 29m 20s