By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)
At WrestleMania 39, I could have taken a nap. Sitting in the press box, excited analysts, reporters, and fans around me, I legitimately could have napped. The show seemed to grind to a halt as the Hell in a Cell match ended and we all knew the main event was coming. The main event, however, took over 38 minutes to get there. It was a painfully long break that killed the momentum of what was an all time great show and weekend to that point.
At Double or Nothing 2022, I literally had to run to use the bathroom or grab a beer (beer – the cause of bathroom visits everywhere). Even running, I didn’t have a chance to see the next entrances or maybe even the next opening bell. I was dodging in and out of people to get back to my seat. It was a very long show and yet it felt like there was not a second of downtime. The show was both never-ending non-stop.
WWE and AEW have a major issue in common, but they are both wrong in opposite ways. WWE’s shows are absurdly slow at points, giving you too much time to come down between matches and rarely stacking high-point on top of high-point. AEW’s shows are action packed and so fast you can never recover from or process what you just saw. By the time you do, the bell has rung for the next match and you realize you missed an entrance.
AEW and WWE pace their premium live events horribly and we need a Goldilocks-esque option in the middle.
This analysis is not purely vibes-based; I did actual real life honest to goodness math! AEW and WWE had premium live events the past two weekends. Both of these could be considered “Big Four” shows by their respective companies. Both shows had runtimes over three hours. Both shows had major matches with video packages playing in the middle. That is to say, WWE Survivor Series 2024 and AEW Full Gear 2024 are comparable.
I looked at the amount of time between the bell to end one match and the bell to begin the next. This means we are looking at any backstage or talking segments, advertisements, video packages, entrances, post-match angles, and celebrations.
I want to begin with Survivor Series this past weekend. It was a very good WWE premium live event with a truly memorable and fun main event. With a runtime over three hours, it was also long for a WWE show. It was a five match show, so there were four segments of time I measured.
Survivor Series 2024 spent an average of 16 minutes and 51 seconds when a match ended before the next match began. Even if you remove the main event from this average (because they had more entrances than usual) you still end up with 14 minutes and 28 seconds between each match.
This is far too much time. In person or on TV, I can quickly lose interest in 16 minutes. It’s about three-fourths of an average sitcom episode. I could sneak in most of an episode of The Good Place between matches from WWE, thus finishing two or three episodes and missing almost nothing of consequence from the show.
WWE likes to fill this time with backstage segments, long video packages, advertising, and entrances. They let each of these things breathe and fill time. There is no hurry when you’re watching a WWE Premium Live Event. In fact, each segment feels like it is separate from the others. The night, because of the half episode of The Office you can enjoy between bells, feels disjointed and anticlimactic. While WWE shows rarely feel awful with their five match format, they also rarely build to a climax. It’s a straight line all the way through with the occasional interruption for a Parks and Recreation break. (Note – I don’t actually watch half episodes of sitcoms during WWE shows, I watch quarter-episodes of ER. George Clooney was so damn handsome…)
As a fan live in the arena, it’s nice to know you can run and hit the restroom, grab a beer, and maybe even call your mom to catch up between matches, but it isn’t fun (sorry mom). The lack of momentum really carries over. While you were built up to a crescendo in the match before, that momentum has dissipated when you have sat through an ad for the latest male butt cleaning system featuring Otis. Each part of the show has to stand on its own and cannot benefit from what came before.
It’s like running five one-match wrestling shows and not letting the night tell a cohesive story.
Now, let’s look at Full Gear. AEW is known for packing a lot into their premium live events and making the shows move quickly. When they are at their best, the shows fly by, often causing me to look at the clock two hours into the show amazed by how fast and fun the show has been. When they’re at their worst, it’s just one match following another with no time between and no joy in my heart. Full Gear had a little bit of both.
On average, AEW Full Gear spent 8 minutes and 22 seconds on each segment between matches. This is just about half of WWE’s break between matches. AEW Full Gear had eight of these breaks in their nine match show, so there were twice as many breaks as WWE had. Just as WWE may have had extended entrances for their main event, AEW had a full in-arena talking segment between Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa. If we remove that 15 minute 44 second segment from the average, AEW’s show had just 7 minutes and 19 seconds from match to match.
This is far too fast, not just for fans in the arena (see my anecdote about running for a beer or a bathroom break at AEW Double or Nothing 2022), but for fans at home. AEW does not give you enough time to process the match before. They’re often cutting to the next video package less than a minute after the bell rings. AEW shows begin feeling longer than they are because the matches pile up with no time to reflect on them.
AEW’s premium live events are packed with action, but that action comes at a cost. When fans don’t get time to reflect, they often zone out. Look at how dead the crowd at Full Gear seemed during the TNT and International Championship matches. They had seen too much and, particularly in the first 10 minutes of each match, were not paying attention.
AEW’s fix should be reducing the amount of matches on each premium live event and building up quality TV matches for the weeks surrounding the show instead. Jack Perry vs. Daniel Garcia for the TNT Championship could have headlined an excellent AEW Dynamite episode and Garcia’s win would have room to breathe instead of being shuffled offstage in favor of the next thing. AEW could also lose most of their pre-match video packages and focus on making their main event packages longer and more dynamic. Finally, the post-match moments on AEW shows are always rushed. We are always pushing into the next thing and there is no reason for that. We are not rushing to a commercial break. Take a few minutes away from the breakneck pace and let fans reset and recalibrate.
While I do believe AEW shows should aim for a three hour runtime, not four, I don’t even mind four hours if they are well-paced. AEW sprinting through four hours is too much, even when the show is good.
How different is AEW’s downtime from WWE’s when you consider the entire show? Survivor Series had five matches. Full Gear had nine matches. There were twice as many breaks between matches on AEW’s show than on WWE’s. WWE spent over 67 minutes away from wrestling on their show, compared to 66 from AEW. Yes, it is just one minute more, but AEW had twice as many breaks.
Fixing WWE’s issues will be harder. It needs to come down to cutting advertising and getting on with the show. I don’t mind WWE’s entrances or video packages. I do mind advertising that does not let the show stand on its own and video packages that are repetitive in format. They could also look at the sheer amount of time they spend in the aftermath of a match. I love soaking in moments, but the end of a WWE match goes “bell, celebrate, replay, celebrate, replay, big posing moment” and it feels superfluous. Let’s cut a replay and a celebration and get on with it. Maybe I won’t be able to call mom mid-show, but I will feel like the night has a sense of momentum.
Pacing a full show is an important art and neither major wrestling company is getting it right. I dream of a world with shows limited to three hours and a maximum of six matches. I dream of shows that let us breathe a little between matches, but also don’t cause us to lose interest. WWE and AEW are producing greatness with their premium live events. We are in a golden era of both match and show quality. Let’s get the timing right so we don’t all feel exhausted after shows!
16 minutes is too long. 8 minutes is too short. Friends, let’s aim to average 12 minutes between matches and the world will be a happier place that could still be filled with video packages, occasional ads for butt accessories and gambling, and wrestling. Beautiful glorious wrestling. No one is getting it right, but either company could change that with their next premium live event.
Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at itswilltime@gmail.com.
Interesting article Will, but I feel you are at least partially misdiagnosing the problem with AEW. I don’t think the main issue is the timing itself, but that every match has so many near-falls and “unexpected” kickouts that the crowd quickly gets numb. They could improve their pacing as you described (on Dynamite as well) but I think it’s much more important to stop the crowd rightly believing that no PPV match is going to end until we’ve had 15 near-falls.
8 minutes between matches is too short? That doesn’t make sense, IMHO. Match is over, wrestlers leave, next guys or girls are introduced via their music. 15 or 20 minute intermission in the middle.