WWE: 7 Things That Will Ruin WrestleMania 30 For Me

2. Turning Mania Into A Marathon

My friend is hosting us for WrestleMania this year (he's got the WWE Network despite our handicap of living in Canada). His wife asked when the show starts, and I said 7pm. A look of relief came over her face, I suspected because she is conditioned to us watching PPV's starting at 8pm. I had to break it to her: "But it doesn't finish earlier, it still goes to 11." Cue look of horror. Factor in the pre-show (originally just 30 minutes, it has been super-sized to the big n' juicy 2 hours!) and even I will be challenged to stay engaged the whole time. An epic journey of four hours has come to be the accepted running time for WrestleMania. I train all year for it, watching wrestling for days at a time while loading my gullet with nachos. This is like my Olympics! But if the show isn't paced correctly, or you wear the fans out before the main event, it is difficult to elicit the desired reactions from the crowd. That translates to a less exciting event to watch at home, and a general perception that the wrestlers failed to impress. The pre-show is too long, and it's arguable that so is Mania itself. So I will skip most of the pre-show, and try not to fall into a nacho-induced coma before Batista can get winded making his entrance.