How much wrestling actually happened at Clash at the Castle?

WWE featured six total matches on the main card of Clash at the Castle, which took place on Sept. 3 in Cardiff, Wales.

The main card of this pay-per-view (PPV) lasted 3 hours, 33 minutes, and 6 seconds (3h 33m 06s). Here is a sorted list of the bell-to-bell times for the six matches that took place during this event:

• 30m 46s: Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre
• 19m 35s: Gunther vs. Sheamus
• 18m 45s: Belair, Asuka, Bliss vs. Bayley, SKY, Kai
• 17m 21s: Matt Riddle vs. Seth Rollins
• 12m 36s: Edge & Rey Mysterio vs. The Judgment Day
• 11m 01s: Liv Morgan vs. Shayna Baszler

These times add up to 1h 50m 04s, which is roughly 51.7% of the show. For comparison’s sake, the overall match time percentage for all 133 WWE PPVs since the start of 2013 is 53.6%.

WWE typically fills out these stadium level shows with a lot of matches, but this lineup was more concise and focused than usual, featuring only six matches on the main card. Four of these matches lasted at least 17 minutes bell-to-bell, after only one match reached that length at SummerSlam 2022. A six match card where just about everyone gets enough time to have a good or great match...that description resembles Triple H’s critically acclaimed NXT TakeOver events, no?

I don’t know if this is how Triple H plans to book WWE PPVs going forward, or if this particular show happened to lend itself well to this format due to the lack of inexperienced celebrities on the card, but this formula was a big success. Given how much time WWE has to fill out each week on television, there’s no need to cram every roster member onto these PPV events. Raw and SmackDown need interesting matches with stakes too, and the wrestlers who didn’t make the cut for Clash at the Castle can still receive a big spotlight there, like we saw this week in Raw’s United States championship steel cage match between Bobby Lashley and The Miz.

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