Jim Ross enjoys watching wrestling and has made a career out of doing just that, but he believes some pay-per-view events risk going too long.
On a recent edition of his “Grilling JR” podcast, Ross was asked what the perfect length of a pay-per-view is. He said,
“I believe that a pay-per-view should be three hours. Plenty of time. If you can’t conduct your business in three hours, you need to reevaluate your plan. At least, that’s my take on it. Those four and five-hour pay-per-views are daunting, to say the least.
“You first gotta’ cater to your audience, and I think when you get past three, you’re gambling, and I don’t know if that’s a smart thing to do, gamble with your audience’s attention span. Because no matter what we say, the heavy sh*t is at the end. It’s called a main event, and I think that’s something that’s very important. You gotta’ cater to that audience, make sure they’re covered.”
This isn’t the first time JR has spoken about the length of pay-per-view events. In 2022, he critiqued the near-five-hour run-time of that year’s Forbidden Door.
The longest single-night pay-per-view in a major company is WWE WrestleMania 35. The final one-night WrestleMania was five hours and 20 minutes long.
