JaymeFuture Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 For this week's podcast (and partly inspired by Slammiversary last week), we're going to debate the Most Useless Major Wrestling PPV show in history, and are looking for your suggestions for this esteemed honour. So what is your ONE pick for the most completely irredeemable, meritless show you've ever seen, devoid of any quality, the one that sticks in your craw, and your explanation on why this takes the wooden spoon. As always the best nominations/explanations will be read on the show (which will be posted this weekend) and you'll be credited accordingly. So which one is it for you? EDIT - The podcast debating The Most Useless PPV Ever and discussing your nominations is now available to listen to here: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/4285da/SCGRadio46-TheMostUselessPPVEver.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidebottom Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 I expect a lot of Heroes of Wrestling talk on your podcast If that isn't the worst, I don't know what is? An honorable mention must go to New Blood Rising in WCW, 2000 which is the emblematic "WCW 2000" event. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 The WWE is full of useless ppvs right now just killing time until bigger events. I would say about 4-6 ppvs are not useless on the current WWE schedule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 No Mercy UK '99. Just look at the card. Plus, Undertaker was in his struggling to walk Ministry of Darkness phase so the main event was a lot more boring than it sounds on paper too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotJayTabb Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Along the same lines as Heroes of Wrestling, though without the redeeming trainwreck qualities, was the i-Generation PPV from Australia. They used to show it on TWC over here, and it was beyond terrible. The main event was Dennis Rodman vs Curt Hennig, which didn't have a clean ending, the opening match between the Public Enemy and the Road Warriors had probably the worst match of either of their careers and even someone like Little Jeanne, who I enjoyed in WCW just a year earlier, was blowing stuff all over the shop. The nicest thing I can say is that I didn't hate the Barbarian vs Brute Force (another Brutus Beefcake moniker) match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Holy shit. Brute Force might be the best knockoff name I've ever heard for Beefcake. It sounds so gloriously 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveJRogers Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 -Heroes of Wrestling An early shot at cashing in at the start of the nostalgia craze, but without any rhyme or reason for any of the matches except for convoluted day of show angles. Never mind Jake's performance during the whole night. It's one thing when its a local promotion running a one-off legends show, but this seemed intended on becoming almost like a Seniors Tour sort of gimmick, hence the angles as opposed to "this guy was a legendary heel, this guy was a legendary face, lets have a good exhibition." -nWo Souled Out The first go out it was way over the top of a vanity piece at trying to do something different and pretty much ended any chance that WCW had at making the nWo into an actual "separate brand" the way the WWE would run Raw and Smackdown for several years. Of course it was for the best, but had they started small with say Worldwide or a Clash, maybe the turnoff wouldn't have been so great. -All the Road and Hog/Hogg Wilds What can you say, this was the equivalent of an actor and his buddies getting together for some fun vacation time under the auspices of a film project. The problem was, they weren't getting anything from the venue, never mind getting little, or the wrong reactions from the "fans" around ringside due to the nature of the setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Holy shit. Brute Force might be the best knockoff name I've ever heard for Beefcake. It sounds so gloriously 90s. Which is so Beefcake since the PPV was taped in summer, 2000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Useless and worst seem like two different things to me. nWo Souled Out was at least a ballsy attempt at doing something different and certainly felt aesthetically different than anything I'd ever seen, so even though it wasn't really a success, I can't pan it too much because it was so gutsy. When I think of useless PPVs, I think of bland ones, which sort of leads me to the RAW-based PPVs in 2003. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laz Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 The single most useless PPV I've ever paid money for was one of those WWA shows between WCW closing and TNA opening. The one in Las Vegas in particular stands out as it had only one match of decent value (a 6-way elimination featuring AJ Styles, LowKi, Christopher Daniels, Nova, and two others I can't recall right now) and the rest of the show was just...there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Is it fair to list the first version of In Your House: Beware of Dog, where Mother Nature knocked out all the lights and pinned Vince 1-2-3? The second version of that show - with two matches cobbled together from the first - was one hell of a show, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiva Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 No Mercy UK '99. Just look at the card. Plus, Undertaker was in his struggling to walk Ministry of Darkness phase so the main event was a lot more boring than it sounds on paper too. 95% of the UK PPVs had very little going for them. Glorified house shows really and the workers tended to put in performances to match. I was treated to a 20 minute Kevin Nash vs. HHH street fight at Insurrextion 2003 which was a fitting way for them to end the idea of UK PPVs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Lacelle Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 BattleBowl 93 was less useful than a typical Clash. No story lines were advanced & zero stand out matches. Hell it was barely referenced on tv afterward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantherwagner Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Holy shit. Brute Force might be the best knockoff name I've ever heard for Beefcake. It sounds so gloriously 90s. It's such a Super Fire Pro Wrestling name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantherwagner Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Blackjack Brawl has got to be up there. It's still amazing at how Abrams was such a scummy coked up two bit conman but still able to get so many home video deals, TV deals worldwide (UWF TV made it to Spain, Israel and other random countries) and PPV clearance. However, if you are talking about absolutely USELESS there's a clear winner to me. Bodyguards vs Bandits. At least the guys behind the LPWA, Heroes of Wrestling or random post-WCW indie PPV's thought that they would make money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Guitar Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 King of the Ring 95. It promised little on paper other than Shawn being crowned King. Which it failed too deliver on, and even then the way the other brackets were laid out and the participants involved offered nothing in the way of quality matches like bret and Owens March to the throne. There were no title matches booked on the card and I know that injuries stopped some people working. Razor and Kid. But no Owen, Yoko, Luger, Bulldog or Jarrett weren't booked either. Which was pretty much the mid card. Plus none of the new signings they'd hired like Hakushi, HHH, Candido or Spicolli were on the show. The only other point of interest was Bret/Lawler, but that had been reduced to a comedy gimmick and the only thing that came from the event was Mabel's main event push. Which even the most optimistic WWF fan could tell you was doomed to failure. It was defiantly the worst WWF ppv at that pointin history and the only point of note in history was the ECW chants in the kOTR finals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Bash at the Beach 1999. Single worst-booked show I've ever seen in my life. They fucked EVERYTHING up, from start to finish. At least the usual suspects like Heroes had the excuse of a horrible roster, a skeleton crew of washed-up has-beens or anonymous nobodies, being booked and directed by amateurs who'd clearly never run a real wrestling promotion before. WCW managed to slit its own throat while still employing dozens and dozens of the best workers, brightest minds, and biggest stars in the industry. (That is, it had the guys who were the best workers and brightest minds, and then also had those other different guys who were the biggest stars; in WCW '99, there wasn't much overlap between the two groups.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheapshot Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Shocked at no mention of Uncensored 1995/96. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 They were two bad shows, but I don't see either Uncensored as "useless." The first had a lot of interest going in, settled some feuds and furthered others, and the idea of a non-sanctioned, "more hardcore" WCW PPV was a compelling one--they just didn't deliver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yo-Yo's Roomie Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 December To Dismember has to be worth a mention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheapshot Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 They were two bad shows, but I don't see either Uncensored as "useless." The first had a lot of interest going in, settled some feuds and furthered others, and the idea of a non-sanctioned, "more hardcore" WCW PPV was a compelling one--they just didn't deliver. 1995 was useless as it totally killed Vader as a threat to Hogan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bucky Posted July 8, 2015 Report Share Posted July 8, 2015 BattleBowl 93 is one of the first things my girlfriend and I watched on the WWE Network and to this day she mentions how great it was. Her favorites were the match featuring one of the Cole Twins hitting some of the saddest offense ever committed to tape, and the match where the Kong guys were on opposite sides. That is one of the funniest shows to get smashed and watch, so it's not entirely useless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parties Posted July 8, 2015 Report Share Posted July 8, 2015 I agree: that Battlebowl, while definitely uninspired and quickly forgotten, is too entertaining to be the most useless ever. Vader dominant show, plus you have Flair and Austin forming a tag team. If "useless" just means "worst", then it's a pretty common conversation. To me the worst late-run WCW shows (Starrcade '99, really almost every show from 2000) are the genuine worst PPVs ever put on, as there was something huge at stake and it was brutally squandered. But if it's just useless in terms of bland, unmemorable, and advancing nothing, Loss' mention of 2003 RAW-only shows is a good one. Badd Blood '03 main evented by a terrible HHH vs. Nash match is historically bad. There's inexplicably a Flair vs. Michaels match on that show too, and a Goldberg-Jericho match with tons of botched spots. Vengeance '03 had the LMS blowoff to Kane-Shane, the terrible Goldberg-HHH main event, and Al Snow and Coachman defeating JR and Lawler in a tag to become the new broadcast team of RAW, which I totally forgot happened and I assume was erased not long after. It's amazing to look back at how bad RAW was in '03: Hunter at perhaps his worst, Bischoff as heel GM, very few talented workers on the roster (almost all of them being on SD at the time) with some all-time terrible ones, and some of Vince's most cynical, self-indulgent booking. It's as good a marker as any as the point at which WWE fell off a creative cliff for several years, and in a way RAW hasn't really ever recovered, even 12 years later. You have to go to the peaks of Cena's first big run in '07 before they got even somewhat back on track - and RAW was mostly bad even during and after that run. But you can make the case that they were coming off the rails as early as Backlash '02, when they learned all the wrong lessons from Hogan-Rock at Mania and started booking Hogan as the top star. Incredible now to think that the all-time worst periods of WCW, WWF, and TNA were all to a large extent caused by Hogan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bierschwale Posted July 8, 2015 Report Share Posted July 8, 2015 Starrcades '89-'92. Four straight gimmick shows for your biggest PPV of the year, especially when the only "gimmick show" WrestleMania in '88 was perceived as kind of a flop and was STILL a tournament for the World title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Chief Posted July 8, 2015 Report Share Posted July 8, 2015 I don't know if we're talking about bad or useless, but as far as useless goes I would have to rank Bragging Rights 2009 way up there. This was right when WWE started the gimmick PPVS and were running something like 15 a year. I think they ran three PPVs in a six week span and Bragging Rights was right in the middle. Guys from Raw team up against guys from Smackdown to compete for brand supremecy. The concept of brand loyalty between Raw and Smackdown was so done by that point and they always give these matches to Smackdown anyway as a consolation prize for being the B show. And Survivor Series, another PPV based on multi person tags, was a few weeks after this. Redundant. The show was fine enough but the concept was the very definition of useless and pointless. They killed the gimmick after two of these duds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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