WWE SummerSlam 2015 Expanding to 4 Hours Is Boon for Midcard Stars

The stage that is WWE SummerSlam 2015 is wide enough to accompany far more than just the roster's marquee stars. Added opportunities are on the way for the company's midcarders with the event's continued evolution into a second WrestleMania.

SummerSlam has always been one of WWE's premier events, but recently it's been getting the kind of attention and treatment usually reserved for The Show of Shows. 

WWE has added meet-and-greet sessions to SummerSlam weekend. NXT will be broadcasting its latest Takeover event in Brooklyn, New York, just one night before the pay-per-view kicks off in the same town. And most recently, as Triple H announced on Monday's Raw, SummerSlam is expanding to four hours.

Aside from insatiable WWE fans, it's guys like Cesaro who should be most thrilled with the news.

Ring time runs out out quickly when the company divvies it up for a pay-per-view. Ask The King of Swing, who was left off both Battleground and Money in the Bank this year. Stardust knows the feeling as well. He's didn't make the cut for either of those shows or Extreme Rules either.

An added hour on the SummerSlam card not only gives Cesaro, Stardust and wrestlers of their ilk a better shot of making the event, but it ups their chances of having time to pull off a memorable match.

A number of the most forgettable pay-per-view contests from 2015 have featured less than nine minutes' worth of action.

Match	Event	Match Time
Big Show vs. Ryback	Money in the Bank	5:28
R-Truth vs. King Barrett	Money in the Bank	5:41
Stardust vs. Zack Ryder	Elimination Chamber	6:12
Stardust vs. R-Truth	Payback	6:50
Bad News Barrett vs. Neville	Extreme Rules	7:22
Bad News Barrett vs. Dean Ambrose	Fastlane	7:58
Neville vs. Bo Dallas	Elimination Chamber	8:46

Compare that to the four-hour extravaganza that was WrestleMania 31. Aside from the women's tag match and the pre-show, none of the bouts on the card dipped under the 11-minute mark, per CageMatch.net. The majority of performers had room aplenty to work the crowd into a frenzy.

That will be the case once again come Aug. 23. SummerSlam's broadened running time means that expected collisions between Cesaro and Kevin Owens, Neville (with Stephen Amell?) and Stardust or Rusev and Dolph Ziggler won't have to be rushed for the sake of more high-profile encounters.

Credit: WWE.com

The stories of each battle have a chance to develop. The rhythm of each contest won't be hurt by time constraints. 

The chances of each of those men stealing the show go up with them getting a bigger slice of the airtime pie.

And stars standing on lower rungs than those fellows mentioned above have to like the bigger SummerSlam as well. 

King Barrett and R-Truth have a much better shot of getting thrown onto the show despite not having much in the way of feuds going on right now. WWE will looking to fill up that extra hour without having every bout go 20 minutes. In WrestleMania's case, that has recently led to the company coming up with excuses to cram a number of guys into one contest.

This year, seven wrestlers fought for the Intercontinental Championship in a Ladder match while 30 gladiators vied for victory in the second annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. WWE won't copy itself exactly at SummerSlam, but there's a good shot a massive match similar to those bouts gets booked.

With an extra hour of SummerSlam on tap, there's sure to be more filler and more pomp and circumstance but also more wrestling, which equals more opportunities for those not guaranteed them each time WWE turns on its brightest lights.