10 Reasons You Should Be Watching WWE Mixed Match Challenge

It's possible for WWE to get through almost an hour of Raw without a single moment of in-ring action. The initial promo can take almost half an hour, with the subsequent barrage of backstage segments and advert breaks pushing it close to the hour mark before the bell rings on some action. That's not the case on the Mixed Match Challenge, where the short running time places the focus squarely between the ropes.

With between 10 and 15 minutes inside the ring on most shows, there's plenty of room for the matches to breathe and, therefore, for the performers to tell a story with their physicality or indulge in a few minutes of entertaining silliness. They're not hamstrung by commercial breaks or the need to cut backstage to see which inanimate object Braun Strowman is destroying with his fists this week.

This focus on the wrestling, whether serious or comedic, is something that makes Mixed Match Challenge refreshing and different in comparison to everything else that WWE puts out each week. It's a little, hermetically-sealed world where the only baggage in a match is which wrestlers happen to be better than the others on that given day.