Wrestling

Roman’s entrance lasted just as long as one of the matches at Royal Rumble

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WWE.com

WWE featured five total matches on the main card of Royal Rumble 2023, which took place on Jan. 28.

The main card of this pay-per-view (PPV) lasted 4 hours, 22 minutes, and 4 seconds (4h 22m 04s). Here is a sorted list of the bell-to-bell times for the five matches that took place during this event:

  • 71m 40s: Men’s Royal Rumble
  • 61m 08s: Women’s Royal Rumble
  • 19m 13s: Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens
  • 7m 32s: Bianca Belair vs. Alexa Bliss
  • 5m 05s: Bray Wyatt vs. LA Knight

These times add up to 2h 44m 38s, which is roughly 62.8% of the show. For comparison’s sake, the overall match time percentage for all 137 WWE PPVs since the start of 2013 is 53.7%.

The match time percentage of 62.8% is low for a WWE card that features two Royal Rumble matches. This is the first such event to fall under 67% in that metric since the women’s Rumble was added in 2018.

One reason for that result is the Sami Zayn post-match angle that closed out the show. That angle lasted 13m 16s, which is longer than the combined match times (12m 37s) for Bliss and Wyatt.

Hardy’s musical performance lasted 3m 21s. His segment occurred during the time between the women’s Royal Rumble match and Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens. The amount of time that lapsed between the closing bell of the women’s Rumble and the opening bell of Roman’s match was a whopping 28m 08s, which is an extreme result.

Roman’s entrance occurred during that time as well. His entrance music played for 5m 05s, which is the same exact length as the Pitch Black match. The Wyatt / Knight story was brewing for two months, with a disappointing payoff of a bad five minute match that was more about promoting Mountain Dew than anything else.

Wyatt’s entrance lasted 4m 03s, and -match angle featuring Uncle Howdy blowing up lasted 4m 19s.

This is the first time that both Royal Rumble matches went over an hour in length on the same card. The 2023 men’s Royal Rumble is the longest 30-man Rumble in history.

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

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