WWE faces fan backlash over commercial-heavy WrestleMania

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For an event named WrestleMania, there wasn’t all that much wrestling taking place.

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Fans of professional wrestling are furious with WWE after the two-night show – billed as their biggest annual showcase event of the year – featured nearly as much commercials as it did in-ring action.

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According to several tallies online, Saturday’s Night 1 featured roughly 86 minutes of wrestling while Night 2 on Sunday had just 82 minutes – though the second night’s total broadcast length was shorter.

However, during Night 1, there was approximately 74 minutes spent broadcasting commercials.

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While WWE no longer bills its big events as “pay-per views,” they do require viewers to purchase them one way or another. In Canada, they are aired on Netflix, which requires a subscription, but in the U.S., events like WrestleMania cost $30 US and are broadcast on ESPN Unlimited.

Even more egregious is the fact that fans at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas – which hosted the event for the second year in a row – also were subjected to ads during the show.

Drawing further outrage from fans was the timing of the ads, with several wrestlers having elaborate entrances not being broadcast at all.

During a six-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, several competitors had their walkouts cut from the broadcast, including Dragon Lee, who donned mechanical dragon wings.

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One of the most frequently shown commercials was for the coming documentary on the late WWE star Hulk Hogan, titled “Real American”. One user on X tallied the total run time of ads for the new Netflix doc at 38 minutes.

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How long were the matches?

Of the 13 matches that took place on the main shows, just four lasted longer than 15 minutes. Six matches lasted less than 10 minutes each and several had run times that were shorter than the competing wrestlers’ entrances.

One fan on Reddit pointed out that the women’s title match between Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer went just 6 minutes and 50 seconds, making it the shortest women’s singles at WrestleMania in a decade.

How did the times compare to WWE rival AEW?

Several wrestling fans were quick to point out how little actual wrestling there was at WrestleMania when compared to rival promotion AEW’s Dynasty pay-per-view show earlier this month. While a mere 37% of the runtime over the two nights of WrestleMania featured in-ring action, a whopping 70% of Dynasty was dedicated to grappling.

Another user on X compared the length of the time between matches to previous main events and the numbers were staggering. While Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton’s match lasted 22:42, it took 43:41 for the opening bell to ring after the end of the previous match.

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Compared to John Cena vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 29, there was just 14 minutes of wait time and back at WrestleMania 13, it took just over seven minutes for Bret Hart vs. ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin to begin.

Who was that at the announce desk?

The number of commercials and advertising placements weren’t the only apparent cash-grabs made by WWE, either.

During the women’s championship match between Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley, the announce team of Michael Cole and Wade Barrett were joined by a third man, Adam Weitsman.

Weitsman reportedly is a crypto billionaire and was shown on-screen with the regular announce team, joining the desk as a “guest commentator.”

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Weitsman was seen wearing a headset, but was not given a microphone and did not participate in any commentating duties.

Many fans speculated online just how much Weitsman paid for the front-row seat to the action and the move didn’t go over well with diehards.

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