Main event match lengths.

[Mochi Lone Wolf]

A recent controversy in much of wrestling has been over the length of main events. As most of us know, the main event goes on last and is, indeed, usually the longest match on the card. With main events these days going anywhere from 35 minutes to well over an hour. If you look over the past few years, you won't find many main events in most companies that are much shorter than that. Which brings us to this week in Japanese Pro Wrestling.





At the most recent Pro Wrestling NOAH show(HIGHER GROUND 2022) the main event was a clash for the GHC National Championship between the champion Kenoh, and the former two-time King of Pancrase Masakatsu Funaki. In a shocking turn of events, Funaki battered Kenoh before submitting him with a choke in less than 5 minutes. This has caused quite a stir among NOAH fans. Is it right to have Kenoh, the man who led the charge against New Japan, lose his title in 5 minutes to 52-year old Funaki? Is it fair to the paying fans to only give them a sub 5-minute main event? Especially with the way Japanese Pro Wrestling is struggling at this time? Is that really wise?

On the other hand, there are those who think this is a nice breath of fresh air from the overlong "epic" main events that are at the top of nearly every card in pro wrestling. They say it's much more realistic to have a main event end in shocking fashion once in a while than for every match to push the hour mark. It brings variety to the show and inspires more intrigue when done sparingly. That is true. Would Brodie Lee or Malakai Black been nearly as over if they hadn't beaten Cody in matches where Cody got next to no offense in? Would the Goldberg/Brock feud have been nearly as big if Goldberg didn't beat him clean as a whistle in less than 90 seconds at the Survivor Series? And even in the above example, it makes sense that Funaki could pull a submission out of his ass to beat someone in a flash. That's his life's work. I'm torn. I can easily see both sides of this argument.

What say you, FAN?

[Mozenrath]

I am not in the loop enough on NOAH to weigh in on if this was the right move there, but I do think that there's something to be said for short main events sometimes.

There's no perfect formula, really. Most fans are paying to see the main event, so you want them to feel they got their money's worth. Still, we can all think of some matches that could have gladly lost 5-10 minutes. It's hard to really assign a hard and fast rule when main eventers come in so many forms. Workhorses like to show off their stamina, but bruisers usually like to be more explosive, and longer matches can hinder that.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Main events can be anywhere from about 5 seconds to 20 minutes. After that, you're pushing your luck. No one has 60 minutes worth of wrestling in them to tell a story you couldn't have told in 20 minutes.

Bret and Shawn at Mania 12 would be looked at much more fondly if they just happened to have a 60 minute match than them forcing the point. They would have had a way better match if they went 25, but there was no reason for either of them to go 3 times as long as they normally would have.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Depends. Am I in the crowd?

If I am watching from home, sure sometimes Lesnar can lose I 90 seconds.

If I paid to be there? The main event is the main draw, I expect my money's worth

[This Player Hating Mothman]

I see room for main events that aren't grandiose epics, but five minutes? No way. If I'm paying for tickets to a show with a main event title match from a promotion on NOAH's level and it runs for less time than Don't Fear the Reaper does, why the hell didn't I just stay home and listen to Blue Oyster Cult's Agents of Fortune instead? There's no reason it can't go on a few more minutes and build up the story a bit more first. Ten minutes? Sure, you can tell a really good story in ten minutes. Sub-5 isn't happening. The 3:58 the match went? Nope. At a point that's not even an issue of just diverging ideas, your audience literally isn't prepared emotionally for that result. Keno's last title match was 19 minutes. One before that was 30. Time limit draw the time before.

I totally get paying money to see that card and being frustrated it offered a match that could fit almost five times inside of the dude's last defense when 19 minutes isn't even a huge epic match length.

[petef3]

Personally, I can think of plenty of instances where I paid to be in a wrestling crowd for reasons other than the main event.

King of the Ring '02 would have been a dramatically improved live experience if the Undertaker and Triple H had gone 5 minutes, to use an extreme example.

[jimmyjames]

It may sound like a cliche but for me the most important thing is that it's good and fits the story arc. The Brodie Lee beatdown of Cody for the TNT title was 90 to 120 seconds and it was great and how short, dominate and violent was what made it great. There was no need for a 20 minute match with filler. The worst thing in a main event is to have people looking at their watches wondering when is this going to end or speed it up. A match can go an hour and it can feel like 20 minutes if it's action packed and exciting with fans not knowing who's going to win, like the Hangman/Danielson 1. On the other hand to have a match go a longer time than it should because the booker feels a main event should go at least at certain time and have the audience out of it in a few minutes is a waste.

[msc]

imo a match should go as long as it needs to, to tell the right story. Goldberg/Brock needed 90 seconds. Bryan/Hangman needed the length it got to tell its story. It depends on the circumstances.

I haven't seen NOAH in close to 20 years so can't comment on if this had a reason within, like the old guy is broken down but he can get that submission on you from anywhere and its over, or the champion deliberately overlooked the older challenger, or whatever nuance there might be.

[Bad Moon]

I don't think it's a problem at all for the live crowds, which is what matters, it's only made into a problem for the TV production side of things.
Ideally you want the match to be just long enough to get the crowd as hyped as you can push them, and then hopefully go to the finish at a high point before you start to lose them. Conversely if you notice the match sucks and the crowd isn't buying it, you should be able to cut your losses and run. But obviously you have a limited time slot that the show goes live on, so your producer wants you to stay on schedule so they can show everything they wanna show within that time.
Honestly I'd prefer if wrestling shows as a general rule were taped and edited before broadcast so that wrestlers get all the time they need to preform to the best of their abilities and leave all the time management stuff in the hands of the editing team. That's how Lucha Underground did it and I still think that's the shining beacon of what wrestling should be like in 2022.
The famous Penta vs Vampiro death match went 30+ minutes live because it took them a while to find their groove together and get the audience into it, but the final broadcast version was just barely 15 minutes with entrances and was still f***ing great.

[Bo Rida]

I think you need a variety of match lengths. Nobody is going to buy into a near fall at 5 minutes if conditioned that a match will always last at least 30 mins.

The key is to do the shorter ones where there's something else on the card to make up for it. I think the old way of IC champ providing the best in-ring wrestling and WWF champ doing the Hogan style drama works well. Lately it's more expected the main event will be a good in-ring match.

There's also the issue of TV time remaining, I like aew's recent trend of putting main events on first so could finish anytime, when there's only 15 minutes left you know what's happening.
Japan had the advantage of having a lengthy post match period on all broadcasts so it's not clear when the last match will end.

[tafkaga]

The Flair/Steamboat matches in '89 are the only matches I recall that went over 30 minutes without getting boring. With that said, they still didn't need to be an hour long. Most of them get pretty repetitive. I think 10-15 minutes is the sweet spot if you got guys who can work that long.

[HMARK Center]

As with most matters, context is key.

With things like AEW having Brodie squash Cody? That was the end of a TV episode, filmed during a time where there was no live crowd. Still, TV audiences are conditioned to realize that something like that is always possible; there are "TV main events", sure, but the structure of a Dynamite taping isn't going to be the same as, say, the structure of a major NJPW card or an AEW pay per view. If I get a short final match at a Dynamite taping, ok, I likely got a lot to make up for that earlier, and I get the reasoning that TV is used to build up stories and angles and sometimes matches have to serve that purpose.

When you're doing pay per views or you're a gate-driven, live-event based promotion, though? You're pushing your luck, but it isn't impossible to make it work.

Kenoh getting wrecked is a big moment; it's unexpected, it doesn't match how his last few defenses have gone, it's a genuine shocker. That said, Kenoh is also a rallying figure for fans, and he lost like that to Funaki, who's not likely holding the title super long; if I'm a fan who bought a ticket by being sold on that match, in particular, I'm pretty pissed. I fully realize they'll likely book a rematch where Kenoh will get his win back, but it probably won't be in the same venue and it might not even be in the same city, so I won't get to see it live.

However, there are two key factors, for me, that could make this work:
1. Was the rest of the card filled with stuff that had the crowd hyped, big moments that allow a shockingly short main event to feel more exciting and less like a rip off? If the main event is your big selling point and then it ends out of nowhere like that, and the rest of the card was just basically normal or standard for whatever promotion you're watching, that's not very satisfying, but if it's the capper on a crazy night, it could be pretty awesome.

2. Who are the participants in the match, and what are their alignments/roles? Lesnar getting squashed by Goldberg worked because people were ready to see Lesnar lose and have his invincibility aura cracked, while Goldberg was a returning legend the crowd wanted to cheer at the time. If Sting had basically squashed Hogan at Starrcade '97, it probably could've worked, too (though I'd argue that WCW would've had to win on most of the rest of the card over the nWo for that to really hit right). Here, Kenoh is someone the crowd wants to support, and you might've just deflated them rather than interested them in what comes next.

Overall, though, if there's one aspect of Inokiism (not the later stage version of it, more like prime early 90s NJPW) that I want to see come back, it's the idea that any match could potentially end at almost any time, ala a 15 minute Hashimoto IWGP title defense that's just a slugfest where the winner still comes out looking like they've been through a war. NJPW and NOAH obviously embrace the early 90s AJPW King's Road epic aesthetic these days, and for good reason given how great a lot of those matches are and how hyped fans get for those main events, but I'd be just as happy watching guys in NJPW like Ishii, Suzuki, Goto, Shibata, Cobb, Ibushi, EVIL, (mainly listing bruisers/strikers here) etc. getting main event matches where they just wage 12-15 minute bomb throwing contests now and then instead of doing the slow build to a 30-45 minute affair, or more matches where someone like Zack Sabre gets his submissions to end a match earlier than expected, if just to keep me on my toes.

Long story short: a balance would be nice, but the context in which any of these matches happen is key.

[salz4life]

Jan 25, 2022 3:06:49 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Depends. Am I in the crowd?

If I am watching from home, sure sometimes Lesnar can lose I 90 seconds.

If I paid to be there? The main event is the main draw, I expect my money's worth

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I remember going to UFC in Milwaukee where the main event was Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis for the LW title. Pettis subbed Henderson in like 30 seconds or so and, while I enjoyed the entire card, I was kind of let down by the quick main event. When I'm at home watching, I couldn't care less if the main event is quick (although I'm not buying UFC PPVs anymore).

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Jan 25, 2022 10:31:08 GMT -5 salz4life said:

Jan 25, 2022 3:06:49 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Depends. Am I in the crowd?

If I am watching from home, sure sometimes Lesnar can lose I 90 seconds.

If I paid to be there? The main event is the main draw, I expect my money's worth

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I remember going to UFC in Milwaukee where the main event was Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis for the LW title. Pettis subbed Henderson in like 30 seconds or so and, while I enjoyed the entire card, I was kind of let down by the quick main event. When I'm at home watching, I couldn't care less if the main event is quick (although I'm not buying UFC PPVs anymore).

In fact, shit like this is a key reason why I watch fake sport, not real sport.

How much did people drop to see Tyson kill someone in one round? Was it worth it?

[salz4life]

Jan 25, 2022 10:40:58 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

In fact, shit like this is a key reason why I watch fake sport, not real sport.

How much did people drop to see Tyson kill someone in one round? Was it worth it?[/quote]


I remember my buddy getting the Tyson/McNeely fight thinking Tyson was going to be rusty and it would be a good fight. My other friends and I told him it wasn't going to last long, but he was so sure that he said we didn't have to give him any money. He was pissed. LOL (we did give him a few bucks in the end)

[Bad Moon]

Jan 25, 2022 10:31:08 GMT -5 salz4life said:

Jan 25, 2022 3:06:49 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Depends. Am I in the crowd?

If I am watching from home, sure sometimes Lesnar can lose I 90 seconds.

If I paid to be there? The main event is the main draw, I expect my money's worth

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I remember going to UFC in Milwaukee where the main event was Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis for the LW title. Pettis subbed Henderson in like 30 seconds or so and, while I enjoyed the entire card, I was kind of let down by the quick main event. When I'm at home watching, I couldn't care less if the main event is quick (although I'm not buying UFC PPVs anymore).

Weirdly enough I feel the exact opposite about real fights. The shorter the better, I want to see someone submit or get KO'd, any fight that goes the distance feels like it's wasting my time.

[Jindrak Mark]

It depends who's involved. I'd be fine with Lesnar/Lashley this weekend for instance just being 10 minutes of all out action. I don't want to see those guys sell for long periods or pad out a match with rest holds. A Kurt Angle v Shawn Michaels type match though I want that to go at least 20.

[Mochi Lone Wolf]

Jan 25, 2022 3:22:36 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

I see room for main events that aren't grandiose epics, but five minutes? No way. If I'm paying for tickets to a show with a main event title match from a promotion on NOAH's level and it runs for less time than Don't Fear the Reaper does, why the hell didn't I just stay home and listen to Blue Oyster Cult's Agents of Fortune instead? There's no reason it can't go on a few more minutes and build up the story a bit more first. Ten minutes? Sure, you can tell a really good story in ten minutes. Sub-5 isn't happening. The 3:58 the match went? Nope. At a point that's not even an issue of just diverging ideas, your audience literally isn't prepared emotionally for that result. Keno's last title match was 19 minutes. One before that was 30. Time limit draw the time before.

I totally get paying money to see that card and being frustrated it offered a match that could fit almost five times inside of the dude's last defense when 19 minutes isn't even a huge epic match length.

Another issue I have is this: Kenoh's whole gimmick is "Man literally too angry to die." So you're telling me that dude would just tap to the most basic white belt choke there is that quickly?

[lucas_lee]

As a watcher of NOAH I think its a terrible move for them to book that. They did the same thing last year (undercutting their younger talent for an older established legend) and for match length as long as its paced well I dont see problems with long matches. Although long matches for the sake of long matches suck.

["Sweet & Sour" ImSoFudginGreat]

I think another thing to consider would be how much you trust the company to follow up properly. When Sheamus beat Daniel Bryan quickly, everyone panicked because it meant Bryan was being buried. When Hiromu beat KUSHIDA quickly there was some discourse but from what I saw people trusted NJPW to follow up properly.

It should also depend on the wrestler. EVIL shouldn’t be doing 30+ matches as it doesn’t fit his style, which is why in my opinion his IWGP Title reign sucked, and I’m a fan of EVIL.

As for the Kenoh match, they have previous in not utilising their talent at the right time. But, there is the argument that Bruce Lee said: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Kenoh got caught by a vet and I bet they will do that choke 5 minutes into the rematch or if he faces Nakajima, they will escape and the crowd will pop.