WrestleMania 35: 4 ways WWE could shorten the card

WrestleMania 35 has been rumoured to have as many as seventeen matches on the card. That is three more than last year's slog of an event. If WWE does book that many matches on the show, the WWE Universe would be in for a very long night. Even longer than the six hours that were spent at the previous couple of 'Manias.

On the one hand, it's WrestleMania. WWE should be putting all their chips in the basket and going all-out to create a year's worth of sports entertainment festivities in one evening. But, it does get incredibly tiring. This would cause the fans to be too exhausted to care about some of the bigger matches on the card. After all, it is no easy task to sit in a seat from when the sun is still out until midnight.

There are ten championships on the WWE main roster, with most of them, if not all, being defended at the Show of Shows. Add in a couple of high-profile singles matches and the battle royals, and you are in for a very long night regardless.

Here is an attempt at a few ideas to condense some of the matches to streamline the WrestleMania card and make it more bearable for everyone watching.

#4 Don't spend too much time on Triple H vs Batista

The Game loves his WrestleMania screen time.

It seems like an annual ritual for Triple H to have a special entrance and a 30-minute featured match at WrestleMania. While the entrances are almost always cool to see, his matches do suffer from the bloated length.

His bouts against Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins in 2016 and 2017 respectively could have done with 5 to 10 minutes shaved off it, although the former would have still suffered. However, his mixed tag team match last year was excellent and went the perfect length at 20 minutes.

Hopefully, The Game's No Holds Barred match against Batista does not go past the 20-minute mark otherwise it could start to lumber a little bit, as well as wear out the crowd. A match similar to the one with Sting at WrestleMania 31, complete with shenanigans galore, would be perfect. Triple H would know, quality and length are not always positively correlated. Also, there are other matches on the show that the fans would rather see go beyond 20 minutes.

#3 Asuka defends her title in the Women's Battle Royal

She has done nothing since beating Becky Lynch.

This is a shame really, because Asuka is brilliant. She won the Smackdown Women's Championship in a triple threat TLC match after Ronda Rousey cost both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, in a moment that has gone on to define Asuka's current state.

She has been overshadowed by the bigger story which involves two Smackdown women going after the Raw title. This leaves the Empress with no worthy challenger at the Grandest Stage Of Them All.

Last year, WWE booked the "first-ever" WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal and it is probably going to happen again this year. So instead of having this match take another spot on this loaded show, WWE could club Asuka and the Smackdown Women's title with the battle royal. It is a solution to have one less match on the card and it isn't like Asuka is likely to do anything much better at 'Mania.

So why not have her defend the title against every female on the roster at WrestleMania, and come out on top as well?

#2 Club all the mid-card RAW matches together

The mid-card of WWE Raw has been pretty lacklustre for most of the year, with the main reason being the repetitive nature of the players involved. The heel trio of Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre have been extremely dominant on the Red brand and are all expected to have their separate one-on-one matches at WrestleMania.

Corbin will be Kurt Angle's final opponent, McIntyre challenged Roman Reigns to a match and Lashley will likely defend his Intercontinental Championship against Finn Balor. Why not club all three matches together and have one big six-man tag team match instead of having three separate matches?

It makes so much sense beyond the fact that it saves time, which is the primary reason for this. Kurt Angle has not been wrestling at 100% as of late and WWE were apparently considering changing his retirement match into a tag team match.

We are not sure if Roman Reigns is completely good to go for a singles match, with his last one-on-one coming over five months ago. It may be underwhelming, but these three monster heels being destroyed may be one of the satisfying moments of the entire night. Have Finn Balor enter as the Demon as well for the cool moment.

#1 Avoid too many non-match segments

Over the last few WrestleManias, there have been a few non-match segments. The New Day, as hosts of WrestleMania 33, had a couple of effective cameos, while there was a mid-show concert with the likes of Pitbull and Flo Rida at Citrus Bowl that night. Last year, we got talking segments which preceded matches, with Elias's appearance being the biggest example of it. This year, we already have a couple lined up, but it needs to be limited.

Alexa Bliss is the host of WrestleMania 35 and will almost certainly open the show. Elias promised that we would get a huge musical performance from him at WrestleMania, a performance that is 100% guaranteed to be interrupted by a legend. Maybe the Undertaker, maybe the Rock. Whoever it is, the Drifter will be left laying at the end of the segment.

Colin Jost and Michael Che of Saturday Night Live are the special correspondents for the show, which means we are probably getting another segment involving them and Braun Strowman. Strowman's terrible history at WrestleMania aside, this should be as short as possible. Hopefully, WWE does not add any more filler to this already long and exhausting show.

We all can only hope that we survive the endless barrage of wrestling that comes out way in less than three weeks, at WrestleMania 35.