Some pay-per-view concepts can last for decades, but some WWE shows were never graced with a follow-up.
For over 30 years, the WWE has had a pretty strong handle on the whole pay-per-view business.
So many classic events.WrestleMania,Royal Rumble,SummerSlam,Elimination Chamber, and so on.
Yet they arent all winners.
Here are all the different PPV one-shots in the WWEs library.
In other words,December to Dismembercounts, but thats it.
It doesnt count if its a subtitle ofIn Your Houseor ifIn Your Houseis a subtitle of the show itself.
That disqualifiesBreakdown,Ground Zero,Rock Bottom, andSt.
Which is just as well, since they arent really gimmicky shows anyway.
Similarly, slightly altering an existing PPV doesnt make it count as its own thing.
See what I did there?
Then nothing is ever done with it.
Its the brilliant first step in a great storyline that never happens.
The finals gives us Randy Savage (heel) vs.
But as for why there was never a secondWrestling Classic?
THE BIG EVENT
August 28, 1986
I was tricked into this one.
WWE connection lists it as a PPV, so I watched it.
Then I discovered that it was never on PPV to begin with and was just a VHS release.
That…probably explained why the intro randomly throws in quick clips from the actual show.
Screw it, Im including this anyway.
Namely Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat in a match with no holds barred.
The main event is Hogan defending the belt against Paul Orndorff and I kind of dig it.
Heenan runs in, clonks him with a stool, and Hogans out.
He wouldnt be as comatose until 1991 when he lost to the Undertaker.
Theres a huge stretch of badness early on that almost kills the show.
After the hot opener of the Killer Bees vs. the Funks, they do the promising Haku vs.
Magnificent Muraco, which unfortunately goes on for the entire 20 minutes and hits the time limit draw.
Regardless, they did revisit it down the line.
Man, I really do wish we could get this and all the crappy WWE-produced films on there.
Im certainly not going to actuallybuyany of theMarinemovies.
As Rip, he acted as WWF (?)
Champion and made enemies with a slimy businessman who wanted to buy him away to his company.
Said businessman started what I can best describe as ECW as seen through Hollywood beer goggles.
The cage match is pretty entertaining, all in all.
), but the plans for Hogan vs. Zeus atWrestleMania VIwere nixed.
Instead, Hogans opponent was a completely different invincible, crazy muscleman who could barely wrestle.
Think of it as an after-credits sequence that isnt actually shown after the credits.
For example, Hulk Hogan defeated Sergeant Slaughter for the WWF Championship atWrestleMania VII.
All is well, right?
The next episode ofPrime Time Wrestlingwill be all celebration?
Turns out, Slaughter set Hogans face on fire an hour after they went off the air.
Randy Savage and Elizabeth endedSummerSlamwith a wedding where nothing went wrong?
Too bad at the reception, Jake Roberts and the Undertaker attacked them.
Then Jake Roberts beat up Savage on an episode of Superstars and had a snake bite Savages arm.
On the same show, Undertaker beat Hogan for the title via plenty of cheating.
Tunney stepped in and said, Oh, well be doing Hogan vs. Undertaker again in six days too!
Slimy or not, its legitimately a good show.
Its your average Bret match, meaning at worst, its watchable.
The two main events are what make the show.
When Undertaker first gets his advantage, its mainly because Hogans tired himself out from dishing out offense.
At the same time, it shows that sometimes it isnt all about power.
Sometimes you just have to fight smarter.
Theres a tag team match of El Matador and Virgil vs. Ted Dibiase and Repo Man.
It ends with Virgil getting pinned because Repo Man runs over and knees him in the side.
Even as a kid, my response to that was, Wait, really?
Okay, so Bulldog and Warlord had a match atWrestleManiaearlier that year.
Its legit my favorite wrestling match of all-time.
In the final moments, Warlord put Bulldog in the full nelson, but couldnt lock his fingers.
The two do a similar spot atThis Tuesday in Texas, but it goes longer.
On the other hand, Warlords full nelson would be unbreakable if he locked his hands.
So Monsoon and Heenan keep going back and forth between Warlord cant get the hold locked on!
ONE NIGHT ONLY
September 20, 1997
Its a critical time for WWF.
The company is in the middle of transitioning into the Attitude Era.
Steve Austin is on the shelf due to a horrible neck injury.
Bret Hart is two months away from leaving the company out of fury due to a real-life double-cross.
Undertaker is weeks away from having his world turned upside-down with the debut of his long-lost brother.
The last three matches are absolutely phenomenal.
First you get Owen Hart vs. Vader, which is great because of the weird US/Canada feud going on.
For patriots like Vader and…well…the Patriot, theyre booed outside of the US.
That means that Owen plays the role of plucky underdog to a frustrated Vader.
Thankfully, its only four minutes long.
Fittingly,One Night Onlywas indeed one night only.
Its a pretty good show all around, but its the last two matches that act as the highlights.
Theres nothing really on the line here, but its a completely solid main event anyway.
Years later, he and Austin would go on to star in the least bad WWE Films release.
You know what else is great?
Thankfully, this is the abrupt payoff where they lose the match and Animal and Droz start brawling.
Meanwhile, Tiger Ali Singh gets another match and goes over future Hall of Famer Edge.
I watched it genuinely surprised that Singh was around for over a year to begin with.
I mean, the show is in London, hence the Capital.
Doesnt really make sense when the next years show is in Birmingham, now does it?
The November/December UK PPV became a regular thing, but they went with the nameRebellion.
Those shows lasted until 2002.
The last UK-based PPV wasInsurrextionin 2003.
INVASION
July 22, 2001
The dream is a reality.
WWF has purchased WCW.
Were finally getting the in-ring war people have been chomping at the bit for for years.
And now the feud is somehow about the McMahons while Paul Heyman slums it in the background.
Here, Christian is uncharacteristically a face in light of the inter-promotional war and makes it work.
The novelty seems pretty cool at times, but there just isnt enough star power to keep it interesting.
It kind of feels like watching the entire Justice League take on a bunch of Batman villains.
Its a silly trade that shows how ill-fated the whole storyline is from the beginning.
Some stories are never meant to have sequels.
At least it gets its own PPV, right?
Least is right because the show is set up to fail.
Not only does it air a mere week afterSurvivor Series, but only two matches are promoted for it.
One is an Extreme Elimination Chamber and the other is a tag match between the Hardy Boyz and MNM.
Not only are neither team on the ECW roster, but the match is also only promoted via WWE.com.
Whats also head-scratching in this is that theres a Stevie Richards/Rene Dupree dark match before all of this.
That certainly could have killed a few minutes on the broadcast.
December to Dismemberwas the final nail in the coffin of Paul Heymans hold on ECW.
Though to be fair, WWE did away with brand-specific PPVs by February of 2007 anyway.
It couldnt just be a show featuring a bunch of high-profile matches.
Instead, they had to focus on some kind of special match or match punch in.
Thats the basis for the following two entries on this list.
First up isBreaking Point, which is based on submission matches.
Not that the matches will be bad, but theres a really lopsided bit of drama involved.
Submission matches put the faces in the advantage, making the heels the underdogs.
Its just how the good guy/bad guy thing works.
A heel will give up when put in your average submission finisher.
Were left with a situation where we have to root for the heels to topple the system.
Legacy vs. D-Generation X in a Submissions Count Anywhere Match is a very badass brawl thats worth your time.
Of the three submission-based matches on the show, this is the only one that pulls it off right.
reminds me of how fantastic Ortons character can be at times.
CM Punk vs. Undertaker is known as that one good match atWrestleMania 29, but here it falls flat.
A couple of reasons, really.
Theres no talking point there.
The whole match is under nine minutes and its the main event.
Oh, and how can I forget Great Khali vs. Kane in a Singapore Cane Match?
If that sounds downright awful to you, you get a gold star because youre absolutely right.
It just didnt work out.
Of the three submission matches the show built around, they all ultimately failed to have anything to say.
The following year did give usOver the Limit, which could be argued as a successor toBreaking Point.
Probably because nobody likes Fatal 4-Waysthatmuch.
The three-man team of Cole, Lawler, and Striker is shockingly solid.
As for matches, the show is good from top to bottom for the most part.
The two world title matches are entertaining, but the endings make the title changes feel secondary.
Similarly, the Nexus shows up in the Cena vs. Orton vs. Two lights, I should say, and we see their first glimmers in here.
We dont see them do that with PPVs enough these days.
Im the only honest one here.
Im the only real one here.
I absolutely adore the Hall of Pain run.
Miz vs. Riley is ten minutes long and Miz does his best to make it work.
It doesnt, even if Riley is over as hell.
That too is unfortunate to sit through.
A fake Obama shows up and gets the toothless humor youd expect.
