WWE featured six total matches on the main card of WrestleMania Backlash (Sun., May 16, 2021).
The main card of this pay-per-view (PPV) lasted 3 hours, 1 minute, and 29 seconds (3h 01m 29s). Here is a sorted list of the bell-to-bell times for the six matches that took place during this event:
- 27m 29s: Roman Reigns vs. Cesaro
- 17m 00s: Roode & Ziggler vs. The Mysterios
- 16m 05s: Bianca Belair vs. Bayley
- 15m 21s: Ripley vs. Asuka vs. Flair
- 14m 16s: Lashley vs. McIntyre vs. Strowman
- 6m 56s: Damian Priest vs. The Miz
These times add up to 1h 37m 07s, which is roughly 53.5% of the show. For comparison’s sake, the overall match time percentage for all WWE PPVs since the start of 2013 is 54.0%.
Most WWE pay-per-view cards only have 6 matches or fewer if there is a big gimmick match in play, like an Elimination Chamber or Royal Rumble match. Those gimmicks were not used on this card.
But instead of adding filler to the event to pad this one out, WWE invested even more time into the five key matches. The narrow focus on these five matches made the match times for WrestleMania Backlash look closer to what I’d expect to see from a TakeOver card. That is, a TakeOver card with zombies.
Are you surprised by any of these results, Cagesiders? Which of these matches received less (or more) time than you hoped for?