Earlier today WWE announced that the annual Andre the Giant memorial battle royal would be moved to the WrestleMania pre-show this Sunday instead of appearing on the main card.

F4WOnline.com has confirmed that the already advertised WWE Tag Team Championship four-way match will also appear on the pre-show. The first match will hit the ring at approximately 3pm local time (6pm ET), meaning the first hour of the heavily advertised two-hour pre-show will likely feature a panel running down the WrestleMania match card.

We had speculated earlier that WWE moving the battle royal off the main card could be a catalyst for a singles match to be added at the last minute, possibly between The Miz and Damien Mizdow. However, it appears the decision to strip down to only 7 matches was made after officials timed out the WrestleMania card and realized they would need more time for the main events, introductions, etc.

For comparison, last year’s show also featured only 7 bouts, with 4 of them exceeding 20 minutes, and one coming in just under 3 minutes.

I don't remember if last year had a two-hour pre-show, but that's still BS. I was somewhat looking forward to the battle royal because it'll have an NXT wrestler. I was also looking forward to the Tag Team Fatal Fourway.

Don't wanna watch the pre-show for two hours if the matches are going to be randomly placed

Just watch The Walking Dead instead dawg

I guess if we're going to see Sheamus at Wrestlemania, it'll be in the Ladder match then.

I remember when WrestleMania 17 had 12 matches

That fucking sucks.

Wrestlemania 20 had 10 matches and they all went longer than 5 minutes. I have a feeling we're getting a shitty Kid Ink performance

So the 3h ppv will be what... 1h wrestling, 20 minutes promos and 1h40m ads? Way to go, WWE.

What's the next thing? The Main Even not being the last match? :V

It's actually 4 hours

I can't wait until it's six hours and we only get three matches.

An hour and a half of that will be a FloRida concert.

Zanon wrote:

So the 3h ppv will be what... 1h wrestling, 20 minutes promos and 1h40m ads? Way to go, WWE.

What's the next thing? The Main Even not being the last match? :V

But...but...I thought the last match WAS the main event. Like, they could put Carmella vs. The Bunny there, and by way of being the final match on the card it becomes the main event?

^yeah but you see, WWE's logic is the one that prevails. So we, thousands / millions of fans, are just a dumb flock of people that don't seem to understand the main attraction has to be the first.

(like going to a bar, and instead of "Have 3 drinks, the 4ths free" is like "First drink is free!". Dumb lol)

You see, it's hard to take an 'accolade' seriously if it's constantly pushed down, particularly on the biggest show of the year. Hard to believe that whoever wins the Andre the Giant battle Royal has really done something if management doesn't think it's important enough for the main card. Same things goes for the tag titles as well. It's fucking stupid.

That's really dumb. They have five singles matches booked for the show. Ladder match aside, they need to sprinkle in some variety, in the form of the Fatal Four-way tag match or the battle royal, to give the audience a break from that.

MFiSG wrote:

That's really dumb. They have five singles matches booked for the show. Ladder match aside, they need to sprinkle in some variety, in the form of the Fatal Four-way tag match or the battle royal, to give the audience a break from that.

I agree. I'm surprised that there are so many singles matches without one having a stipulation, that would at least mix it up a bit.

Yeah, I hate it when it's just singles match after singles match.