If you’re planning on watching Wrestlemania 34 on Sunday, April 8, you might want to make sure you have comfortable seat, food on hand, and a bedpan ready because this is going to be one long show. Last year’s show–including the preshow–was rumored to run for six and a half hours and actually ran for over seven. This year’s Wrestlemania 34 is on track to run just as long, if not longer.
According to the upcoming schedule on the WWE Network, Wrestlemania’s Kickoff Show will start at 5 PM ET and run for two hours. Then, at 7 PM ET, Wrestlemania will begin and is slotted to run until 12 AM ET. In total, that’s 7 hours, but since WWE Network obviously controls its own programming and a replay of the event is scheduled to follow, Mania going over the seven hour mark shouldn’t be a problem if the time is needed.
The “Big Four” of WWE PPVs–Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and Survivor Series–all tend to be longer shows, with each of them lasting at least six hours, including the preshows. Mania always pushes the envelope in terms of the amount of time it wants to keep you glued to the television.
While Wrestlemania 33 was the longest WWE event to date, 2018’s PPV will surely top that. As of this writing, there are 13 confirmed matches on the card, with at least one more expected to be added this week: John Cena vs. Undertaker. Even though this is going to be a long event, it should move pretty quickly to fit in all these matches.
This year’s event will be held in New Orleans at the Superdome, and in addition to Mania itself, WWE will air an NXT Takeover on Saturday and the Hall of Fame ceremony on Friday. It will be a jam-packed weekend, but we have you covered. Make sure to keep checking back with GameSpot during the week for more Mania news and predictions, and come back Sunday for live coverage of the event.