How much wrestling actually happened at TLC 2018?

WWE featured 10 total matches on the main card of TLC (Sun., Dec. 16, 2018) from the SAP Center in San Jose, California.

The main card of this pay-per-view (PPV) lasted 3 hours, 56 minutes, and 36 seconds (3h 56m 36s). Here is a sorted list of the bell-to-bell times for the 10 matches that took place during this event:

• 23m 54s: Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles
• 22m 54s: Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose
• 22m 31s: Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka
• 12m 39s: Natalya vs. Ruby Riott
• 12m 21s: The Bar vs. New Day vs. The Usos
• 12m 09s: Finn Balor vs. Drew McIntyre
• 11m 35s: Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton
• 10m 48s: Ronda Rousey vs. Nia Jax
• 7m 28s: Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin
• 5m 45s: Carmella & R-Truth vs. Alicia Fox & Jinder Mahal

These times add up to 2h 22m 04s, which is roughly 60.0% of the show. For comparison’s sake, the overall match time percentage for all WWE PPVs since the start of 2013 is 54.0%.

TLC 2018 became just the 8th PPV (out of 83 total events) since the start of 2013 to reach at least 60.0% match time.

Taking it a step further, here are the top 11 match time percentages across those 83 events:

• 70.3%: Royal Rumble 2018
• 64.6%: Royal Rumble 2016
• 64.5%: Royal Rumble 2015
• 62.3%: Royal Rumble 2017
• 61.7%: Royal Rumble 2013
• 61.7%: TLC 2014
• 60.8%: Royal Rumble 2014
• 60.0%: TLC 2018
• 60.0%: TLC 2016 (this one rounds up to 60%, so it’s technically under 60%)
• 59.8%: Hell in a Cell 2017
• 59.4%: TLC 2013

Outside of that lone Hell in a Cell event, there are an awful lot of Royal Rumble and TLC cards on that list.

Just about all of that nonsense from Baron Corbin’s segment counted as part of his match time, including entrances from Braun Strowman and Kurt Angle. That’s because the opening bell rang when Corbin called for the start of the forfeit 10 count, and the closing bell rang after Corbin was pinned by Strowman. So I counted everything in between those two boundaries as part of the match time.

Natalya’s match time actually stands out the most to me, since it was greater than just about every undercard match. I thought there was pretty good chance that her match would go less than 10 minutes.

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

Don’t forget to keep it here at Cageside Seats for a full breakdown of the timing for the entire TLC 2018 PPV later this week!