Wrestlemania: relationship between match length and match quality

We all - at least in our minds - have chanted "FIGHT FOREVER!" now and again. And Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels pretty much did at Wrestlemania 12 in 1996! But how are match length and match quality actually related statistically?

Obviously, the WWE is not completely crazy and usually puts those wrestlers in long matches who are fairly good in the ring. And, well, Triple H always gets long matches - sometimes he's fairly good and then sometimes he's not so good (especially vs. Randy Orton). So let's look at all Wrestlemania matches and see how match length and match quality (star rating based on Keith and Meltzer) are related:

Note: Hart/Michaels from Wrestlemania 12 (61 minutes) is not shown in the graphs because it really messes with their dimensions being such a strong outlier. For completeness sake: match got an average 4.5* rating.

(Somewhat premature) Takeaways:

• Clear general trend: Longer matches tend to be better matches as wrestlers get more time to tell a great story and as there is a serious selection bias by which good wrestlers are usually (hello, Hulk Hogan and JBL) given more in-ring time than bad wrestlers!
• The correlation between both measures is a very solid +.7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_coefficient)
• A DUD is a DUD: What is apparent from the many dots across the bottom of the graph is that you can have 10 minutes or longer and still produce a sh*t match!

HOWEVER! This trend (more time = more quality) is only strong for matches going 15 minutes and less. The following graph shows only those matches going longer and what you see is not really all that clear. There is still a small positive correlation (+.25) but the general message seems to be that once you get to that area where you have a fairly long (15 minutes +) match, the length of the match is not really saying all that much with regards to match quality anymore!

There have been 40 20+ minutes in Wrestlemania history. 23 of those matches included at least one of the group of Triple H, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels!

• While Taker and HHH of course had various classic matches (including against each other in a Hell in a Cell match), both occasionally stunk up the join with long and boring matches
• HHH vs. Batista, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar
• Taker vs.  Shane McMahon, Brock Lesnar, Sycho Sid ... Brock Lesnar has thus had long dull Wrestlemania matches both against Triple H and the Undertaker - that's quite an accomplishment in its own right!
• The only one who seems to be untouchable in long Wrestlemania matches is ... Mr. WRESTLEMANIA HBK Shawn Michaels! Even his worst 20+ minutes match against Ric Flair at Wrestlemania 24 rates at a good 3.375 stars. And the atmosphere throughout the match was so great that you could even argue that the star rating is a bit low to begin with.

Finally, don't forget that this post has only considered Wrestlemania matches. We'll later revisit this question and look at data from other events.