No, seriously, WrestleMania is way too damn long

You’re going to see plenty of “takes” today, or even just hear it from literally everyone you talk to who watched the entire show, that WrestleMania 35 was too damn long. And you know what?

Every single one of them is right.

My god, this show was stupid long. Our resident stats guy, Cain A. Knight, clocked the main card at 5 hours, 24 minutes. Add the pre-show and it was 7 hours, 24 minutes. No matter which way you slice it, that is far too big an ask of any human being on Earth, even for one night only when we know going in it will be a marathon.

The counter take is, well, you don’t have to watch the entire show all at once, and you can simply go back and watch later. This is true, of course, in the sense that the statement is accurate. But WWE is much like sports in the sense that it’s best enjoyed when viewed live.

Who the hell wants to intentionally miss parts of a live show to account for length? Do we really need to strategically map out a viewing pattern for a single event? Is that what we’ve come to here?

This also ignores the audience who paid to watch the show live at the arena. Of course they knew what they were getting into when they purchased a ticket but you can’t tell me the Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair main event had even half the energy of the Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston match, or the Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins match, both candidates for the headlining spot who were passed up in favor of the women’s title match. That was the right decision too, just to be clear, but it sure as hell didn’t come across like it on TV.

Why?

Because it was midnight local time and those fans had just spent all their energy on, quite literally, 15 matches, two big returns, and one dance break before it. This was a great disservice to the moment they spent so much time building to, Lynch winning the titles, in what was a historic match, the first ever women’s main event at WrestleMania.

They all deserved better, and they could have gotten better if the powers that be in WWE didn’t decide it necessary to book literally everyone on the card, even at the detriment to the stars who are carrying the show, and the fans who are being asked to pay to see it.

The more you get of something, the less you’ll want it. WWE would do well to take this into account for future WrestleMania events.

Something tells me they won’t.