10 Ways WWE Is Killing WrestleMania
4. Time Allocation
Apportionment of time has been a critical problem in recent years - and the problem persisted in Orlando.
Shane McMahon Vs. AJ Styles was exhausting at twenty minutes, and it conveyed a curious message - basically, non-wrestler Shane McMahon had more in him than effectively half the roster. The RAW Women's Title match badly needed an extra five minutes. Every elimination after Nia Jax was rushed.
A very promising match could not live up to itself. Randy Orton Vs. Bray Wyatt was truncated. Ditto the SmackDown Women's Title six-pack challenge. It's telling that the exhausted crowd still found the energy to go apesh*t over everything Goldberg and Brock Lesnar did. They knew they were getting a match that was guaranteed not to outstay its welcome.
Shane McMahon received more screen time than any one of the full time wrestlers under his charge - and, pre-Kurt Angle, he was meant to be the least loathsome and least inept authority figure on WWE television. SmackDown is meant to be the "land of opportunity".
That feels like a rib now.