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It is a new year and it means the start of another year of looking at the monthly pay per view offerings from World Wrestling Entertainment and Impact Wrestling. Impact Wrestling provides the apropos Genesis pay per view to start off the year while World Wrestling Entertainment gave us the 25th Edition (not anniversary) of the Royal Rumble.
The Royal Rumble usually provides us with the longest match of the year thanks to the format of the match with thirty people in the match and intervals of about 90 seconds between entry. This year’s main event was the longest match of the month by a significant distance and provided us with almost sixty percent of the total wrestling on the show, but it was down fifteen minutes from last year’s Royal Rumble match.
With the main event at Genesis, Impact Wrestling had their tenth match of more than twenty minutes and did so for the third pay per view in a row.
On the other side of the ledger, World Wrestling Entertainment had their second straight pay per view with a match that would qualify for the weekly television short match mark of one minute. This time it was not a cashing in of the Money in the Bank briefcase, but it was a Funky match where Drew McIntyre might be wishing that he was still on that milk carton.
Genesis saw a sixteen minute drop in wrestling from Final Resolution while the Royal Rumble had an eight minute increase over TLC.
The other thing that the Royal Rumble pay per view does is that it provides us with the highest total of wrestlers on a pay per view. With only thirty people in the Rumble match, they were not going to reach last year’s totals, but there was only one fewer wrestler on this year’s show even though there were two more matches this year. Two people pulled double duty on this year’s pay per view like last year. Dolph Ziggler has made it two Rumbles in a row that he has wrestled in a match and the Rumble. This year, Big Show joined him while Randy Orton had the honors last year.
The times for the wrestlers in the elimination match for the X Division Title were:
Kid Kash 6 Minutes
Zema Ion: 8 Minutes
Austin Aries: 11 Minutes
Jesse Sorensen: 11 Minutes
I will break down the times for the Royal Rumble match in the traditional Beyond the Numbers Column for the Royal Rumble Match.
Total Wrestling Time: Total this Month: 187 Minutes [last month 195 Minutes]
WWE Royal Rumble: 96 Minutes [last month 88 Minutes]
TNA Genesis: 91 Minutes [last month 107 Minutes]
TNA Genesis
Austin Aries versus Kid Kash versus Zema Ion versus Jesse Sorensen: 11 Minutes
Devon versus D’Angelo Dinero: 10 Minutes
Rob Van Dam versus Gunner: 7 Minutes
Gail Kim versus Mickie James: 6 Minutes
Bully Ray versus Abyss: 15 Minutes
Samoa Joe and Magnus versus Crimson and Matt Morgan: 9 Minutes
James Storm versus Kurt Angle: 13 Minutes
Jeff Hardy versus Bobby Roode: 20 Minutes
WWE Royal Rumble
Daniel Bryan versus Big Show versus Mark Henry: 9 Minutes
Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and the Bellas versus Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres, Alicia Fox, and Tamina: 5 Minutes
John Cena versus Kane: 11 Minutes
Drew McIntyre versus Brodus Clay: 1 Minute
CM Punk versus Dolph Ziggler: 15 Minutes
Royal Rumble Match: 55 Minutes
Wrestling Per Hour
WWE Royal Rumble: 32 Minutes (Last Month 29.33 Minutes)
Total for Month: 31.17 Minutes (Last Month 32.5 Minutes)
TNA Genesis: 30.33 Minutes (Last Month 35.67 Minutes)
Average Length of Matches:
WWE Royal Rumble: 16 Minutes (Last Month: 8.8 Minutes)
Total for Month: 13.36 Minutes (Last Month 10.83 Minutes)
TNA Genesis: 11.38 Minutes (Last Month 13.38 Minutes)
Longest Matches:
Royal Rumble Match: 55 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Jeff Hardy versus Bobby Roode: 20 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
Bully Ray versus Abyss: 15 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
CM Punk versus Dolph Ziggler: 15 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Shortest Matches:
Drew McIntyre versus Brodus Clay: 1 Minute (WWE Royal Rumble)
Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and the Bellas versus Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres, Alicia Fox, and Tamina: 5 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Gail Kim versus Mickie James: 6 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
Totals for 2012
Total Wrestling Time
WWE: 96 Minutes
TNA: 91 Minutes
Overall Wrestling: 187 Minutes
Total Number of Matches
TNA: 8 Matches
WWE: 6 Matches
Total: 14 Matches
Wrestling Per Hour
TNA: 30.33 Minutes
WWE: 32 Minutes
Average Length of Matches:
WWE: 16 Minutes
TNA: 11.38 Minutes
Longest Matches:
Royal Rumble Match: 55 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Jeff Hardy versus Bobby Roode: 20 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
Bully Ray versus Abyss: 15 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
CM Punk versus Dolph Ziggler: 15 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Shortest Matches:
Drew McIntyre versus Brodus Clay: 1 Minute (WWE Royal Rumble)
Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and the Bellas versus Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres, Alicia Fox, and Tamina: 5 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble)
Gail Kim versus Mickie James: 6 Minutes (TNA Genesis)
Total Wrestling Time
WWE: 2,339 Minutes
TNA: 2,242 Minutes
Overall Wrestling: 4,581 Minutes
Total Number of Matches
TNA: 196 Matches
WWE: 181 Matches
Total: 377 Matches
Wrestling Per Hour
TNA: 32.49 Minutes (down from 32.59 Minutes)
WWE: 30.38 Minutes (up from 30.31 Minutes)
Average Length of Matches:
WWE: 12.92 Minutes (up from 12.81 Minutes)
TNA: 11.439 Minutes (down from 11.441 Minutes)
Longest Matches:
Royal Rumble: 70 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble 2011)
Royal Rumble Match: 55 Minutes (WWE Royal Rumble 2012)
Team WWE (John Cena, Bret Hart, John Morrison, R Truth, Daniel Bryan, Chris Jericho, and Edge) versus Nexus (David Otunga, Skip Sheffield, Darren Young, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Wade Barrett, and Michael Tarver): 35 Minutes (WWE SummerSlam 2010)
Shortest Matches:
Magnus versus Rob Terry: 1 Minute (TNA Destination X 2010)
Sting versus Jeff Jarrett: 1 Minute (TNA Sacrifice 2010)
Kane versus Rey Mysterio: 1 Minute (WWE Money in the Bank 2010)
Robbie E versus Max Buck versus Jeremy Buck: 1 Minutes (TNA Against All Odds 2011)
Jeff Hardy versus Sting: 1 Minute (TNA Victory Road 2011) Madison Rayne versus Mickie James: 1 Minute (TNA Lockdown 2011)
Alberto Del Rio versus CM Punk: 1 Minute (WWE SummerSlam 2011)
Jeff Hardy versus Jeff Jarrett (part 1): 1 Minute (TNA Turning Point 2011)
Jeff Hardy versus Jeff Jarrett (part 3): 1 Minute (TNA Turning Point 2011)
Daniel Bryan versus Big Show: 1 Minute (WWE TLC 2011)
Drew McIntyre versus Brodus Clay: 1 Minute (WWE Royal Rumble 2012)
One Year Ago
Since I have been doing a similar feature in the weekly By the Numbers, I figured that it would make sense to take a look back at the pay per view offerings from the previous year to see how they compare.
Last year’s two January pay per view offerings both had more than one hundred minutes of wrestling with Genesis just hitting the number while Royal Rumble clearing the number by a good margin even though there were only four matches on the pay per view. Genesis’ total of one hundred minutes was the fifth highest total for the year for Impact Wrestling. Royal Rumble’s total of one hundred sixteen minutes of wrestling was the highest total for 2011 and the first of three WWE pay per views to pass one hundred minutes.
With only four matches on the Rumble pay per view, WWE was still able to have the three longest matches of the month thanks to the Rumble match that clocked in at 70 minutes and the World Title Match and WWE Title Match that both lasted more than 20 minutes. The other match was a Divas Title Match that went 5 minutes and was the second shortest of the thirteen matches in the month.
The longest match from Impact Wrestling was eighteen minutes followed by a fifteen minute match. There were six matches between nine and twelve minutes and the shortest match was four minutes long.
The Royal Rumble in 2011 had forty men in the match and even with the match going fifteen minutes longer than the 2012 version, the wrestlers who had the highest wrestling totals were John Cena and CM Punk with 35 minutes in the Rumble match. There were fourteen people who lasted more than ten minutes in 2011 (compared to six in 2012) and five people who lasted more than twenty minutes in 2011 (compared to four in 2012). Only three people lasted less than a minute in the match (compared to two in 2012).
The average participant in the Rumble match lasted slightly more than nine minutes (compared to just more than eight and a half minutes in 2012).
Alberto Del Rio won the match by lasting almost eleven and a half minutes (Sheamus lasted more than twenty-two minutes this year).
The man who entered at number one lasted the longest and it was CM Punk.
At the 2011 Genesis pay per view, the longest match was the continuation of the top tag team feud in the company from 2010 with Beer Money facing the Motor City Machine Guns. Ken Anderson pulled double duty which culminated in him winning the TNA World Championship. This was not the only title change because the X Division Title (Abyss beating Douglas Williams), X Division (Frankie Kazarian defeating Jay Lethal), and Tag Titles (Beer Money defeating Motor City Machine Guns) also changed hands. Madison Rayne was the only person to retain a title.
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