I took my 1963-June 2013 WWWF/WWF/WWE database (compiled from TheHistoryofWWE results) and tried my best to attribute which matches were televised.  Analysis by Chris Harrington (chris.harrington@gmail.com)  I also extracted match lengths. For matches that were televised but I did not have the match length, I applied the average match length for that show. This ONLY includes matches - no contest, no rumbles, and explicitly excludes 2/3 falls and 3/5 falls matches. I haven't cross-referenced the televised results that I guessed against the actual show histories (i.e. I tried to figure out what matches were part of the Velocity taping, but I haven't gone back to double-check that exactly those matches aired.) This does not include interviews - so good luck adding those adjustments in! Top WWF/WWE performers in terms of length of televised matches (through about June 2013)
 Shows included ACTION ZONE: 8.8 min. avg ALL AMERICAN WRESTLING: 6.2 min. avg ALL STAR WRESTLING: 4.2 min. avg ALL STAR WRESTLING/MAPLE LEAF: 2.8 min. avg CANAL+: 9 min. avg CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING: 3.8 min. avg CHASE: 5.4 min. avg COUNTDOWN: 8.3 min. avg ECW: 4.8 min. avg FNME: 4.8 min. avg FREE FOR ALL: 6.1 min. avg GCW: 7.4 min. avg HBO: 11.6 min. avg HEAT: 4.1 min. avg INT'L WRESTLING CHALLENGE: 6.4 min. avg JAKKED: 4 min. avg JAPAN TV: 12.4 min. avg Les Etoiles de la Lutte : 2.6 min. avg MAIN EVENT: 10.8 min. avg MAPLE LEAF: 4.6 min. avg MARCH TO WM: 3.8 min. avg MSG: 9.5 min. avg MSG/USA: 9.1 min. avg NXT: 6.3 min. avg PPV: 11.1 min. avg PRISM: 9.6 min. avg PTW: 4.7 min. avg RAW: 4.4 min. avg SATURDAY MORNING SLAM: 6.8 min. avg SHOTGUN: 5.5 min. avg SHOWDOWN: 7.4 min. avg SKY MOVIES+: 13.1 min. avg SMACKDOWN: 4.2 min. avg SNME: 6 min. avg SUMMERSLAM FEVER: 3.5 min. avg SUMMERSLAM SPECTACTULAR: 9 min. avg SUNDAY NIGHT SLAM: 9.4 min. avg SUPER ASTROS: 4.1 min. avg SUPERSTARS OF WRESTLING: 6.8 min. avg TELE+2: 9.1 min. avg TELE5: 12.7 min. avg THE MAIN EVENT: 7.7 min. avg TNT: 6.5 min. avg TRIBUTE: 5.3 min. avg TV: 9.8 min. avg ULTIMATE CHALLENGE: 7.4 min. avg USA: 6.9 min. avg VELOCITY: 4.5 min. avg WRESTLING CHALLENGE: 2.5 min. avg WWE SUPERSTARS: 6.9 min. avg WWE.COM: 4.6 min. avg WWF GCW: 5.9 min. avg WWF SUPERSTARS: 2.7 min. avg YOUTUBE: 7.3 min. avg Grand Total: 4.1 min. avg I didn't include rumbles or 2/3 Falls match which would probably favor Hogan; obviously there is a lot more PPVs now for people to gain TV time (along with 3-hour RAWs and 2-hour SMACKDOWN!s). Hogan did a lot of TV interviews and wrestled on tons of house shows in the 80s (interviews to entice you to come to the show to see him) so he just didn't wrestle on free TV in a given year nearly as much as someone like Dolph does. This excludes Dark Matches too - previously Hogan/Andre wrestled lots of those, but now the champ does double-duty - once on TV and once for the live crowd. The Kane # of matches being SO much higher than HHH is a bit shocking to me; dunno if that's because Kane has stayed active these last few years while HHH has moved into a part-time role, or whether it's because Kane was doing tons of squashes (more matches, shorter overall time) or because I screwed up something! It could probably be split into quartiles of match lengths: under 3 minutes, 3-6 minutes, 6-10 minutes, above 10 minutes. Things like the Rockers/Rougeaus marathon matches obviously favor HBK's performance. There's also Triple H and Undertaker average 17-20 minutes per PPV match while guys like Kane & Big Show only average 12. Over time, it adds up - Kane only had about 1,650 PPV minutes in my model while HHH had almost 2900. If Kane wrestled twenty minute average (like Hunter), he'd be up at 2,580 - much closer. Guys with 1,000+ minutes of PPV time (again, this excludes rumbles but does include some iron man matches): Triple H, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, Edge, Glen Jacobs, Rock, Big Show, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio Jr, CM Punk, Steve Austin - obviously a very modern-centric list! It's absolutely true that this list is very post-1982-centric. In terms of total matches, pre-1980, Bruno blows everyone away: 1963-1979 WWWF/WWF 1. Bruno Sammartino: 1843 matches 2. Baron Mikel Scicluna: 1473 matches 3. Chief Jay Strongbow: 1336 matches 4. Gorilla Monsoon: 1281 matches 5. Johnny Rodz: 1203 matches 6. Prof Toru Tanaka: 981 matches 7. Arnold Skaaland: 950 matches 8. Dominic DeNucci: 920 matches 9. Victor Rivera: 898 matches 10. Tony Garea: 897 matches 11. Ivan Putski: 755 matches 12. Larry Zbyszko: 734 matches 13. SD Jones: 697 matches 14. Pete Sanchez: 691 matches 15. Killer Kowalski: 681 matches 16. Luke Graham: 675 matches 17. Spiros Arion: 668 matches 18. Stan Stasiak: 641 matches 19. Manuel Soto: 616 matches 20. Pedro Morales: 613 matches 21. Tony Altimore: 579 matches 22. Johnny Valiant: 559 matches 23. Bobo Brazil: 535 matches 24. Haystacks Calhoun: 533 matches 25. Johnny Rivera: 508 matches I'm still trying to figure out the best way to determine which matches were and were not televised. Here's an example of what I'm tackling (I made up these results) EVENT @ PLACE (ATTENDANCE) All Stars Wrestling taping: A. Dory Dixon defeated Tony Altimore B. The Shadow defeated Gene Kelly C. Prime Time Wrestling 9/30/84: Skull Murphy & Brute Bernard defeated Pete Sanchez & Tony Martinelli in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0 8/15/79: D. Ted Lewin defeated Manuel Soto E. Pedro Morales pinned Bull Johnson 8/22/79: F. Ted Dibiase & Tito Santana defeated Jerry & Jimmy Valiant via disqualification G. Andre the Giant pinned Big John Studd with a reverse cradle at 12:08 In this scenario, I would assume that matches C/E/F/H/I were televised (at least once, possibly more than once on several shows) while A/B were probably dark matches before the taping actually started. However, it's possible they were taped too. Making things even weirder, PTW showed some old pre-1980 matches in the mid-1980s too so you have the issue of people who had matches air on WWF TV years after they were originally taped. To deal with this I labelled each match by what show they were possibly on as well as a separate flag on whether I thought that match ever aired. Some matches are "yes" (they aired), some matches are "no" (they probably didn't air) and some matches are "unclear" - which is that I have a length for the match, so it's very likely it did air even though it's unclear when it aired. I tried to include the "yes" and "unclear" matches in my analysis. For matches that were "yes" but didn't have a time, I applied the average length of time for a match on that show. So, as you can see, until I reconcile the results with match-airing lists, there's a lot of potential for mistakes. Furthermore, usually after 1980, if there is a time on the match, quite often it was a televised match. However, in the pre-1980 results, there's a large discrepancy between matches with times and when the TV tapings seemed to be happening. For instance, Bruno Sammartino has 256 matches with times (1963-1979) which total 4,499 minutes - this includes several 60+ minute matches with Waldo Von Erich, Gorilla Monsoon, Pedro Morales, Bill Miller and Hans Mortier. |
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