The SummerSlam 2019 pay-per-view was an awesome experience for the WWE audience. It had a total number of 12 matches. Three of them took place on the Kickoff Show whereas the rest of the nines were on the main show. The event lasted for a total of 5 hours and 30 minutes (2 hours Kickoff Show and 3.5-hour main show)
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This was one of the key features of Summerslam as it was shorter in length in comparison to other big-four PPV events. For example, the main show of WrestleMania 35 lasted for 5 hours and 20 minutes, excluding the 2-hour long Kickoff Show. The show was more than 7 hours long in combined that left the fans in an exhausting stage by the end of the night.
So, WWE officials wanted to keep it short but impactful, overall trimming down the length. Consequence wise, many big names could not perform on it including the likes of Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan and more. Another important part of this big decision is that Vince McMahon did not take it but the new show-runners of weekly programming, took the call.
As per the reports of The Dirty Sheets, Raw Executive Director Paul Heyman & Smackdown Executive Director Eric Bischoff convinced Vince McMahon to bring this change and keep the main show short enough to make the fans happy. Triple H has also pitched the same idea for quite sometimes but Vince didn’t listen to him. But the change happening around Summerslam indicates that more big changes are imminent in the future.
See you next year, Boston! #SummerSlam pic.twitter.com/qLsAkV77RP
— WWE SummerSlam (@SummerSlam) August 13, 2019
Paul Heyman also wants to let storylines build-up longer. He does not want to rush into matches so that we get a “big fight feel” when they finally happen. This is one additional reason why above-mentioned multiple top stars didn’t compete at Summerslam 2019 since they didn’t have a proper storyline.
Braun Strowman commented on the situation as he was not happy for not performing at Summerslam, (courtesy wrestlingINC.com)
“Yeah, [being left off] was a pretty tough pill for me to swallow,” Braun admitted. “But, at the same time, with me not being in a storyline, they didn’t just want to shoehorn me in [or] just to have me on there for no reason. They’re doing a good job of making sure that any time Braun’s on TV, it’s something impactful.”
