WrestleMania Viewers All Had The Same Complaint, And WWE Needs To Listen

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Credit: WWE

I’m not the guy who is normally out here telling WWE or any other wrestling promotion to make booking decisions or run the business based on feedback from social media. Now and again, however, the feedback is so loud and so unanimous from hardcore and casual fans alike that it’s important to stop and listen. This is one of those moments where WWE needs to stop and listen. There was not enough actual wrestling on the first night of WrestleMania 42.

The problem wasn’t the number of matches. Seven is a perfectly reasonable number for the first night of a two night ‘Mania. The problem is most of the matches were not given enough in-ring time. Four of the seven lasted under nine minutes, which caused two different problems. First, those matches never achieved their full potential because they couldn’t properly tell a story and build momentum, and second, their abbreviated lengths caused the commercials that came after them to feel less like appropriate breaks and more like out of touch cash grabs.

Let’s talk about the in-ring quality problem first. The best three matches during ‘Mania last night were, in some order, Gunther vs Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes vs Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre vs Jacob Fatu. They went approximately 16 minutes, 23 minutes and 14 minutes respectively. Each match had enough time to change pace and allow each person to have sequences of being in control and sequences of being controlled. Each match had enough time to create false finishes that felt believable, and the actual ending of each one, to say nothing of the booking decisions, felt earned.

The other four matches, unfortunately, didn’t get that same luxury. The Usos and LA Knight vs The Vision and IShowSpeed, Becky Lynch vs AJ Lee, Liv Morgan vs Stephanie Vaquer and the four way Women’s Tag Team Championship match all got between 7 and 9 minutes. There were some nice sequences in each of them. I’m not trying to say they were bad matches, but none of them had a chance to build anticipation, do any meaningful callbacks or show off what the wrestlers are really capable of because there just wasn’t enough time. Fans are starting to notice a pattern too...

Anyone who watches a lot of wrestling can tell you that there’s a gigantic difference between 8 minutes and 12 minutes. The latter allows you to slow it down and tell a fuller story. It allows each performer to show off their move set and look strong. It allows the match to start hitting different gears; so, when you get into the ending sequence, there’s an expectation that any attempted pin could be the actual finish. At some point, every kick out starts to feel like a surprise.

It’s really hard to achieve the same level of surprise in under 10 minutes, and it’s really hard to make it feel like a proper WrestleMania match without more time. In theory, ‘Mania is supposed to be a showcase for these performers to bust out new movies and build upon what we see on Raw and SmackDown every week. It’s supposed to be a moment for them to rise to the occasion and show what they can do, but that’s nearly impossible when they’re getting less time than they normally get during run of the mill television matches that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I’m not Triple H or Bruce Prichard or anyone in the writers room. I have no idea why these matches were given such abbreviated times, but it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that it was because they didn't want the show to go too long and they had a certain number of commercials they needed to fit in. The break between every single match had a timer that counted down approximately four minutes in commercials, and after the broadcast came back on, there were other commercials that were seemingly injected into the actual broadcast. I wasn’t sitting there with a stopwatch (although some fans were), but it felt like a lot.

And it especially felt like a lot because of how short the matches were. I had no problem peeing, raiding my fridge and taking a quick mental break after Gunther and Seth Rollins because it felt like I had just watched a proper WrestleMania match. It felt like that break was earned. Getting a five or six minute timeout after Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer were only given nine minutes for their World Championship match, however, felt a lot less earned. That one felt a lot more like WWE’s parent company TKO exploiting WrestleMania and everyone watching it to make a few extra bucks from Ram Trucks or The General or any of the other sponsors.

I’m not a guy who is bothered by monetization. I’m willing to tolerate a few commercials here or there. I’m even OK with ads in the ring. It’s 2026 and that’s just how business works, but last night and the overwhelming backlash on social media needs to be a wakeup call for those running WWE. There was approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes of actual wrestling during night one of WrestleMania 42. Four of the seven matches weren’t even given 10 minutes. As a comparison, night one of WrestleMania 40, widely considered the high point of the TKO era, contained more than 2 hours of wrestling and only one match (not counting Damian Priest's epic cash-in) went less than ten minutes.

Moving forward, WWE either needs to give fans an experience that’s much lighter on the ads, especially since we’re all paying to subscribe to a streaming service to even get ‘Mania, or it needs to give us longer matches that make those breaks feel earned. Last night was a frustrating combination of short matches and long commercials, and as a result, a really high percentage of fans did not enjoy what’s supposed to be the most exciting yearly event in wrestling. For a company that's so obsessed with monetization, it's weird that TKO doesn't seem to realize how bad that is for business long-term.