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We are only a couple days away from the first night of WrestleMania 36. The full slate of 16 matches that will air across two nights have already been taped, but WWE inexplicably has yet to announce specific match lineups for Saturday (Apr. 4) and Sunday (Apr. 5).
On the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed what’s going on with this situation:
“They taped everything. So now the idea is they’re editing everything, they’re putting in special effects and all that...after everything’s edited then they’re gonna have to time everything. And then at that point they’re gonna figure out how to fit everything on each show, I guess to have the shows the most exciting order of matches for two nights that they can do. So it’s not like they taped matches in a certain order. They taped a whole bunch of matches and now they’re gonna put ‘em in order.”
“It’s gonna be based on how they feel after everything’s done based on what’s good, what’s not good, the star power and everything like that. That’s how they’re gonna decide the order. The idea is they’re gonna have the best show possible with the footage that they have.”
It feels like WWE has been pushing the traditional pay-per-view option harder than normal for WrestleMania 36. But with the economy in a really bad place right now and pro wrestling being so much worse without a live audience, it seems to me that WWE will need to rely on more than just the WrestleMania brand name to actually sell the separate nights. Meltzer says that for “most of the cable companies” it will cost $35 per night on the traditional pay-per-view format.
So when might we be told more specific details about the separate cards for each night?
“I was told it would be in the next 48 hours they would figure out what match is gonna be on what show and the match orders.”
Well, considering that WrestleMania 36 is roughly 56 hours away, that seems like a given. Unless of course WWE plans to just not announce anything before the show kicks off at 6 PM EST on Saturday.
Now, what about the pre-show format?
“My impression is that of these 16 matches, we’ll probably get one pre-show match and seven main card matches each night. I think. I don’t know. Nobody knows anything.”
Nobody knows anything. Can you please help clear this up ASAP, WWE?