To the surprise of many, Samoa Joe defeated former WWE champion Rey Mysterio in less than a minute last Sunday night. Many speculated that the match was kept short due to Mysterio still working through an injury, which occured last Monday during his match against Baron Corbin.
The Smackdown Live superstar reportedly suffered an ankle injury and there was concern amongst officials that Mysterio would be unable to compete at the showcase of the Immortals. Several days before WrestleMania, it was reported that the match-up would go on as planned, as the injury wasn't serious.
However, according to Dave Meltzer, the reasoning behind the match time being so short is due to the company trying to keep the time length down for WrestleMania. The pay-per-view ran 7.5 hours with 16 matches – which includes the pre-show – so the United States title match-up was just a victim of a time cut.
Meltzer never speaks on how long the actual match was supposed to last, but he doesn’t believe that Mysterio’s injury on Monday contributed to his bout being trimmed considerably.