WWE News: All WWE PPVs get a new start time and they could all run for four hours

What's the story?

It has been confirmed today that ALL pay-per-views WWE stages from Money In The Bank going forward will have a 7 pm ET start time, with several sources claiming that all shows will now be four hours long, with the big four being five hours long as standard.

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7 pm ET means the start time will be 4 pm PT, midnight GMT, and a 4:30 am start in India - not including pre-shows.

In case you didn't know...

Starting with WWE's most recently pay-per-view, Backlash, all WWE events going forward are now dual-branded.

While WWE faced criticisms of having "too many" pay-per-views and producing too much content over the past year, it was evident during Backlash that having all the titles defended from both Raw and SmackDown on one three-hour pay-per-view was ambitious, with neither Tag Team Championship being defended on the show.

The heart of the matter

News has broken in the past few minutes that all WWE pay-per-views will now start one hour earlier than the previous set time, with all shows kicking off at 7 pm on WWE Network.

Bryan Alvarez of Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer took to Twitter to confirm that the shows will all be a minimum of four hours long, too, with the "big four" being five hours in length.

More to come, but it's official. All WWE PPVs will now start at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT. All shows will be minimum four hours long. The big four will be five hours long but still start at 7 ET/4 PT.

— Bryan Alvarez (@bryanalvarez) May 23, 2018

Meanwhile, PWInsider also reported the time change, confirming that it will begin on June 17th at Money in the Bank.

PWInsider claims that the this does not necessarily mean that all events will be timed to run four hours exactly, with most likely that the shows will running in the area of three to three and a half hours - adding that the company will have the ability to go longer or shorter as needed.

What's next?

Well, the new format kicks in immediately, starting with Money In The Bank on June 17th.

SummerSlam isn't too far behind, so we won't need to wait too long to see how this takes effect.

Author's take

Well, as someone from the UK, this is good news for me. Shows kicking off at midnight are a much more appealing prospect than 1 am starts, although for people in India, 4:30 am starts may be slightly challenging to say the least.

At 4-7pm across North America, though, this may be the ideal reaction to the news of WWE SmackDown moving to Fox in 2019, particularly with the rumour of a move to have the blue brand live on Fridays.

It looks like WWE is making sure they best position themselves for primetime television going forward!