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The 30 Worst WWE PPVs Ever

> Hey Scott,
>
> Someone wrote into the BoD recently, asking about some of the shittier PPVs on the Network that you could recall. By coincidence, that was my next project at Camel Clutch Blog, at least from the WWE side of things.
>
http://camelclutchblog.com/top-30-worst-wwe-pay-per-views-in-history/

Better you than me. 

Comments

  1. I am so glad we're bringing this back.

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  2. Judgment Day 04 definitely belongs on there over Wrestlemania XV.

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  3. Eh, I actually liked the three title matches (sans Chavo/Jackie) and Rey/RVD vs. the Dudleyz. Plus I actually liked the potential for Mordecai and enjoyed the squash. It was a fair B-show, a little below average, but not the height of shittiness.

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  4. I was at three of these shows. KOTR 95, WMXV and RR2015. RR2015 was an incredibly fun show for me, though. The title match was the 2nd best match I've seen live and the Rumble was a fun trainwreck to be a part of.

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  5. I feel like time may be kinder to the show, but it was worth acknowledging for the list

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  6. Horribad booking though. Not the absolute worst in star ratings but the storylines were AWFUL. A few *** matches at best here and there couldn't save it for me.

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  7. How many Arena shows have you been to?

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  8. The show with the fucking hologram will always win (or lose, or whatever).

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  9. I'll concede this much: 2004 was on a roll PPV-wise until JD broke the streak. GAB, however, was MUCH worse (and Armageddon as noted was MUCH MUCH worse)

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  10. I liked Shane vs. X Pac way more than any of those matches.

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  11. that makes one of you :-)

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  12. Any PPV where there was a LOUD "We Want Flair!" chant and he wasn't on the card.

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  13. There was too much garbage at XV for it to even be an "A" show, let alone a WrestleMania. I don't think either of those matches have aged as well over the years; I'd go **3/4 for Shane/Pac and ***1/2 or so for Austin/Rock. They may be the only matches ** or better, save for the frenzied opener.

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  14. Great article, can we have an NWA/WCW version?

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  15. Starrcade '87, Bunkhouse Stampede '88, Bash '91, Havoc '91, Havoc '92, Slamboree '93, Beach Blast '93, Fall Brawl '93, BattleBowl, Starrcade '94, Uncensored '95, Slamboree '95, Uncensored '96, Slamboree '96, Bash at the Beach '97, Road Wild '97, Starrcade '97, Bash at the Beach '98, Road Wild '98, Fall Brawl '98, SuperBrawl IX, Slamboree '99 - Starrcade '99, SuperBrawl X - Great American Bash 2000, New Blood Rising 2000, Halloween Havoc 2000, Sin 2001

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  16. The crowd made the '91 Bash unique

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  17. Man, you are really cooking with those nicknames!

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  18. Ah KOTR 95. Always brings a smile to my face when I see it on these kinds of lists.



    I remember watching this on PPV, and as a 11 year old kid who loved everything, even I hated KOTR 95. After Undertaker lost, I remember groaning as I realized that Mabel was going to win the thing. I think I didn't watch TV for a week or two after so I didn't have to watch any of the Mabel push.

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  19. Is that the sound when the door at Dunkin Donuts opens?

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  20. Lance Storm thinks you're boring.

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  21. I'd love a challenge. If the webmaster, Eric Gargiulo, is interested in it, I would gladly write it

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  22. did you omit Souled Out 2000 solely because Benoit won the title? Because that was a pretty lousy show

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  23. I watched Bash 91 and it was a bad show but the weird gimmick matches and booking made it almost fascinating to watch.

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  24. I liked Halloween Havoc 1992, but that's just me.

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  25. So did Bill Watts. Check out that Chono chinlock

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  26. AverageJoeEverymanMay 6, 2015 at 12:16 PM

    "Whoops 5 minutes to go, lets race out that main event of a cage match involving Paul E Dangerously!!"

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  27. It had it's fair share of nonsense, but the Steamboat Vs. Pillman and Windham and Rhodes against the Steve Williams was good.

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  28. KOTR '99 shouldn't be received as horrid, for the sole reason that it sparked Rock's "Dear God, my name's Billy," promo the next night on Raw.

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  29. Hell of a call on Armageddon 04. I watched that show during my December PPV binge and was horrified how Bad Smackdown was. Definitely think it's worse than the Bash

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  30. Oh definitely. Armageddon 08 was a really fun show outside of the beginning of the JBL and Michaels crap iirc

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  31. Adam "Colorado" CurryMay 6, 2015 at 12:27 PM

    Wow, I didn't have to click "next" 29 times, awesome.


    Also, Buffalo has had 4 WWE PPVs. 2 of them are on this list.

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  32. I was 11 and loved wrestling... except KOTR '95

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  33. It wasn't nearly as bad as the shows before it or the shows after it

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  34. Yeah most bad WCW ppvs have that car crash charm about them where WWF bad ppvs are more plain boring.

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  35. Let's not forget poor Joe Thurman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-sVl95KI2c

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  36. If nothing else, WCW had cooler entrance ways

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  37. How about that troy Martin guy? He was terrible

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  38. Straight and narrow.....right down the middle like Bill Alfonso

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  39. At least you got to hear a legit Attitude-era Austin pop. What was that like live?

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  40. Lol no clue, have not been able to find anything in particular about it either. I mean he was no selling as the match started so I'd say no concussion. Just pissy about doing a job I guess

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  41. He got a decent settlement from Turner/WCW, right?

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  42. Dusty Wolfe and Diane Gill. Kings of the skunk striped mullets.

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  43. It was great. I also was there when he returned at Unforgiven 2000. Loudest pop I've ever heard live.

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  44. Blackwell looked like someone deflated Hollywood Hogan.

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  45. I watched Sin a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't that bad, minus the main event. The cruiserweight stuff was especially awesome. And thankfully Sid's gruesome injury was edited on the Network.

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  46. I loathe slideshows, so I don't write slideshow content. I like going to bed not feeling like my soul is eradicating.


    .......which is why I watch awful wrestling.

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  47. I'm sorry, any list without "Heroes of Wrestling" in the top 5 is automatically invalidated.

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  48. Andrew ChampagneMay 6, 2015 at 1:34 PM

    Eh, I chuckle seeing Foley steal the line. But yeah, point made.

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  49. WWE list. HoW wouldn't qualify.

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  50. Its a WWE list...

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  51. That was '07, and yeah, that show was all right.

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  52. Red Tyler- Ginger guy who looked like he'd lose a street fight with a new born.

    Mario Mancini - looked more like a landscaper than a wrestler.

    Ricki Ataki - Watch one of his matches...nuff said

    Dale Wolfe - also worked heel under the name Dusty Wolfe

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  53. Personally love Havoc 91, but the rest I more or less agree with

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  54. That triple main event...*shudders*

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  55. Didn't Heenan make a Chinese food joke about wrestling Ricki Ataki?

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  56. Its frustrating cause SuperBrawl I was awesome and did a hell of a job setting up Bash 91. But hey, shit happens

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  57. Somewhere in the bowels of Pittsburgh (alongside Mark Madden) Shane Douglas just cut a profanity-laced promo on you.

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  58. not a transcript, but I remember him testily referring to it as a ****1/2 classic (his words) and saying we should just learn to enjoy it.

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  59. I just watched it recently and it kicked ass until Rude-Chono which just blew ass.


    Barbarian seems like an odd World Title opponent for Simmons but watching the weekly TV, Barbarian was built up well. That match wasn't bad but lacking considering it was a World Title match.


    Then of course the lame Main Event which again, was built up well but Jake was out of shape, they had to pick the worst match on the wheel, and Jake was gone by the 1st or 2nd week of November so it meant nothing.


    The Unified tag title match was all kinds of awesome and certainly worth a watch for those who've never seen it

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  60. Cant wait for the last half of 1996 raw reviews. I guess the attitude era officially started a year later but ALOT of edgy over the top stuff happens in 96. The pillman austin gun incident, undertaker and mankind having the most brutal matches ever in wwe including boiler room brawl and buried alive, ahmed johnson feuding with the NOD (a black panthers group that called ahmed an uncle tom foe selling out to whitey), austin bret fued with austin cussing and being badass and cool and the hit man showing intensity that we've never seen before at that point, and also the start of the real shawn and bret fued with shawn starting to be the immature dick on camera that he was in real life and bret being the paranoid whiner on camera that he was becoming in real life and the first fued where you knew that they just didnt like each other on or off camera

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  61. Austin pops live are just nuts. I was at the RAW when he crashed into the ring with the zamboni, the place EXPLODED

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  62. no, that was 2008. 2007 was JBL costing Jericho, and Shawn facing Kennedy in Kennedy's best match ever (prior to he and Angle killing it at Lockdown 2010, a needle in the haystack of badness that was that year)

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  63. And Missy Hyatt... who the Baltimore Athletic commission wouldn't allow to wrestle a man so they had her kidnapped instead. That match was a mess but I still don't understand why that didn't go on before the main event. They were both cage matches... unless they thought they could send that crowd home happy. It wasn't happening.

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  64. I was at that ppv. What a waste of money.

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  65. Supposedly Thurman turned out OK. He just took both moves incorrectly.

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  66. Sounds a lot like the intros to his podcasts in the present day!

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  67. I think Rock actually cut that promo on Heat

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  68. I totally forgot that Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes were ever a tag team.
    What was the point of that anyway?

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  69. to save on heat

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  70. You mean taking a chokeslam and powerbomb on your neck isn't how you are suppose to do it?

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  71. Justin went the Scott Keith school of "I choose not to answer this question even though I saw it.".

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  72. http://bigelow34.proboards.com/thread/4155/king-ring-2002-rip-1993



    It's copy/pasted in the middle of the comments section.

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  73. Tony Stetson is the Broad Street Bully.

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  74. One of The Rock's best.

    I think his best promo time in his career was from 98 to the end of 99. His Big Slow promo and the Jabroni Jackpot one were also during this time.

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  75. You always knew when his arm hurt.

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  76. Yeah, my dad thought the Owen thing was a work- I came home from watching the PPV at a friend's house, and my parents both kind of laughed it off like "oh, what will they think of next?". It wasn't until it showed up on the news (where they aired the same clip of Owen pulling Austin into a post outside the ring 100 times in lieu of actual, other footage) that they were like "oh, I guess it was real".

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  77. I'm amazed that Al Wilson thing didn't get more outrage. Isn't that the only fictional death? After Chris Benoit's I mean.

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  78. Didn't Bubba say 'pay us one dollar more, that's all' and Heyman said no.

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  79. Joey Styles was a risible commentator.

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  80. I'm trying to find this match online now..

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  81. I'm pretty sure he did ask Vince personally, and the only caveat was 'Shane can't trash WWF when he returns to ECW.' That didn't last long, but it was a caveat.

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  82. This list is invalidated by the fact that the '97 Rumble is on here and not the '06 Rumble.

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  83. >a DQ finish in a Tag Team title match


    Which match at RR 2015 ended in DQ?

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  84. Jericho since about 2012 is seemingly on a multi year campaign to make me like him less as a performer and a person. The RVD match is still shit, it was one of the worst PPV matches he ever had at that point and he worked in WCW!

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  85. Nick Foley managed to get his jaw broken.

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  86. I love the opening to ECW's November to Remember '95 when Buh Buh powerbombed both of them. It was a career-making moment for the former Buh-Buh Ray Dudley.

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  87. Armageddon 2003 still holds my record for all-time worst PPV I've ever seen. Hot garbage, from top to bottom.

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  88. "Hey! Don't you EVER steal The Rock's catchphrases!"

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  89. Yep Arn rocked the Grandpa glasses and you still had to respect him.

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  90. TLCS last year was arguably the worst pay-per-view I've ever seen the WWE put on. It won a Doomie here!

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  91. AverageJoeEverymanMay 6, 2015 at 3:11 PM

    " . . Ricky Steamboa, and the fat man himself Supermark25! . . "

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  92. AverageJoeEverymanMay 6, 2015 at 3:13 PM

    You didnt want to be in the match that Vader doesnt even bother to bring his gloves to.

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  93. Rusty Brooks: Poor man's Earthquake. Made an entire career for himself on the indy circuit on the strength of a one minute squash match loss to Hulk Hogan on Superstars.

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  94. Tony Zane got offense...when he was a member of the James Boys.

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  95. Yes. Otherwise plenty if wcw events would be there along With practically every single ecw ppv

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  96. The biggest takeaway from this is that December Pay-Per-Views are poison. Filler shows that are financial bombs for the most part. They're better off just doing a beefed up "Holiday Raw."

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  97. Lol. Watch more ppv. Trust me. It wasn't that bad.

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  98. Harlan Leverage IIIMay 6, 2015 at 4:54 PM

    Foley stealing that line and taking a victory lap around the ring while chanting his own name is one of my favorite Raw moments ever.

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  99. Forgot about that one... I liked that too. My general point is that the Rock was the worst at beating a catchphrase into the ground, that's one of the main things I hated about him back then.

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  100. That was when I was first becoming a fan, and I couldn't stand the Rock until his Hollywood heel run mostly because of his promos. Even before he turned heel at Survivor Series, when he was getting these huge face pops, I just didn't get it. "Why is everyone going nuts for this guy? He's corny as fuck and he can't wrestle."

    I also didn't care for the brawling all around the arena WWF Main Event Style, so there was that too.

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  101. I've never heard anything quite like an Austin pop during the Attitude era. Just amazing.

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  102. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:49 PM

    Nope, it was never on the PPV. The camera was away from the ring when it happened. The footage you see is from the Nitro the next night.

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  103. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:52 PM

    Can we say, "Misc. PPV" list as well? Probably couldn't make it up to 30 entries, but we still need to honor the likes of Heroes, I-Generation or whatever it was PPVs from Australia, and Bodyguards vs. Bandits from the Dallas Sportatorium (which I never saw but heard enough about, and would love to see given my tolerance and general morbid curiosity for Grey Pierson GWF style)

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  104. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:55 PM

    I don't know if Havoc '91 holds up, but I remember Taylor vs. Eaton being very good, and you have the beginning of the Dangerous Alliance. SC87 probably would get a nostalgia pass from me, and LOD vs. Horsemen was a great match outside of the Dusty Finish.

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  105. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:56 PM

    I read a lot of NWA/WCW reviews lately, especially on the UWF Wrestling Boards, and it seems more and more like Barbarian was this hidden gem as a worker. What do you think?

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  106. Although not the worst of all time by any means, the last 2 or 3 years worth of PPV's have certainly been the most boring. I'll take Royal Rumble 99' over a 2015 PPV with a bunch of 3 star matches and no stakes or sense of urgency.

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  107. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:57 PM

    They just needed to do what they did on the house shows at the time...have the male partner knock out Paul and have Missy get the pin. Yeah I know, not much better, but....

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  108. James M. FabianoMay 6, 2015 at 5:59 PM

    Based on my comment below, and on the topic of bad PPVs in general....DOES the Bodyguards vs. Bandits PPV exist anywhere online? Someone finally posted a few episodes from GWF's last months, as well as the follow up Jim Crockett NWA revival in Dallas, so I thought this might by my "lucky" time as far as obscure companies that ran the Sportatorium.

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  109. I recorded every PPV on VHS as a kid (still have them, as a matter of fact).

    Most every show got watched multiple times, but I honestly can't recall ever rewatching KotR 95

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  110. They show the full clip on the following PPV on the Network

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  111. He had a great look, agility, and played the next evolution of the monster heel, one who could work and fly a bit. Must be why he was around for 15 years in the big two. Monster heels(besides Vader) never really held major titles so I assume no one gave him a chance at Havoc which made the matchup a bit dull on paper. Even if he wasn't going to be a top guy or a 4+ star worker, he was a good hand. Check out the Rumble 91 match vs Boss Man if you've managed to not see it.

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  112. Generally a guy people seemed to like, IIRC. Of course, if you're associated with Meng, people aren't exactly going to go out of their way to fuck with you.

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  113. Ah that explains it. The CONSTANT replays on Nitro the next night screwed with my memory.

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  114. You're right, it is in fact just you.

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  115. The Miz has been around for eleven years?

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  116. Adam "Colorado" CurryMay 6, 2015 at 9:50 PM

    At least AdBlock takes care of the second one.

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  117. I REALLY hated the Smackdown PPVs of 2004

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  118. They could bring Starrcade back. (and still make some TLC matches). It could draw old WCW fans and give the event some credibility.

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  119. Are you serious? How could a guy who hurt everyone, himself included, be described as a 'reliable midcarder'?

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  120. That was actually going to be a 6 person cage match at first. Windham was going to be with the heels but that obviously had to change with the Flair firing. I would assume it was gonna be Scott Steiner with Rick and Missy but he ended up tearing a bicep. I'd have tried to sign Eddie Gilbert for a day to reunite the 3 of them for "one night only" if they had managed to keep Flair around for the main event and Windham in the tag.

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  121. I said he was injury prone as to why he wasn't.

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  122. Ah I didn't see this or I wouldn't have bothered looking myself but here's the actual post on his page if you care what his page looked like back then: http://web.archive.org/web/20021010031640/http://www.chrisjericho.com/commentary.htm

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  123. Royal Rumble 2015 is full of DUDs and a **** star match. Definitely deserving of being called one of the worst pay per views of all time.

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  124. I was there. People were throwing trash and stuff,it was awesome.

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  125. Oh man, what was the Jabroni Jackpot?

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  126. Bunkhouse Stampede was so bad it even counts at WWE's worst ppv

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