7. Great American Bash 1996- Aww yeah. I was the high vote for this one. This show is getting the full storytime treatment...

Prologue

One of my biggest regrets as a wrestling fan is not going to this show which emanated from Baltimore. Definitely could have found a way if I really wanted to. Only one member of my wrestling fan clique went- a peripheral member we all called Salt. Salt must have been the original smark because Chris Benoit was already his favorite wrestler. That was so weird to me! And this is coming from an actual 1996 Chris Benoit fan! Anyway, I'm sure I could have tagged along with Salt if I really wanted to. Instead I had to listen to him justifiably gush about the all time great PPV he had just witnessed for the next week+ at Courtball. 

Truth is I was still skeptical of WCW pay per views after being burned by the debacle that was Uncensored (and World War III to a lesser extent). Slamboree the previous month was so unappealing that I passed up a chance to watch it on tape for free. Literally chose not to walk a block to watch a free wrestling PPV on tape at my friend's house in nineteen-ninety by god six. Years later I would attend quite a few bad (indie) wrestling shows and lemme tell ya being stuck in a building for two-three hours of bad wrestling really is brutal.

Plus WWF had trained me to believe babyface celebrities always beat bad guy wrestlers. So the prospect of seeing two stupid football players beating the GOAT and one of the two GOAT tag team wrestlers filled me with dread. Therefore I missed out and have been kicking myself over it for the last 25 years.

I knew I missed out on something special the very night of the show when the local news covered Mongo's heel turn. The news, be it local or national, typically only covered wrestling when a celebrity was involved. So the fact that GAB 96 MADE THE NEWS meant it was a really big deal.

Watched the tape a day or two later courtesy of my friend Chuck's dad's weird coworker friend who was obsessed with which wrestlers were gay (Goldust, nay. Luger, yea according to this guy).

The Show

Opened in style with the Steiners and my guys Fire & Ice throwing each other around in the highest profile of their many hoss fights. A good time was had by all. Shame about the botched finish though.

The Konnan & DDP pushes continued with both guys winning forgettable filler matches.

Then it was time for Dean & Rey to blow some minds with the best New Style match I had seen yet. Rey became an overnight sensation in a stellar debut while Dean once again looked like the best pure wrestler in the world by defeating this masked human highlight reel who seemed to defy gravity. This would be MOTN on most shows. But not this one! Only downside was half my clique turning on Malenko to side with Rey. Up to that point Dean had been one of the few wrestlers we all liked/loved. We had adopted him as Our Guy. But this match saw half of my cohorts defect to Team Rey after he blew their minds. Although even that would have an upside because it would lead to subsequent Rey/Dean matches being all the more heated as Team Dean and Team Rey argued over their guy being the top Cruiserweight in wrestling. We were deeply invested in this stuff!

Tenta/Bubba wasn’t good, but it was cool to see "THE MAN" John Tenta pick up the win and get some more revenge on that jerk Big Blubba after the match.

Then it was time for Benoit & Sullivan to further blow some already blown minds with the best New Style brawl I had seen yet. Crowd brawling! A woman in the men's room! It was amazing! You have to understand I had never seen ECW or even Cactus Jack's WCW pay per view matches. So I had never seen anything like this before. And what a finish! As Chris Benoit superplexes Sullivan from a table perched on the top turnbuckle for the win. But the fun had just begun because the post-match saw Arn (who had been sitting on the fence in the Benoit/Sullivan war) side with his Horsemen mate Benoit to stomp a double mudhole in "The Taskmaster." HUGE pop from the Horsemen-loving Baltimore crowd. I already liked Benoit, but this is where he became a made man with me. More importantly, this is when he really earned his Horseman stripes.

Sting/Regal was up next. As a longtime Regal guy I was hyped for this one. I didn't really think Regal was going to win, though of course I wanted him to. I was just hoping for a good showing by His Lordship that would hopefully lead to him becoming a permanent fixture in the upper midcard scene. Regal did lose, but he put in a good showing by taking Sting to the limit. I could live with it. Alas, that would be it for Regal hanging and banging with the main eventers. Surely Kilgore breathed a sigh of relief. Anyway, this was a good match, and a Top 3 Regal match for me. It also has to be the most high profile bout of Regal's career, right? 

Then it was time for the big swerve as MONGO turned on Kevin Greene to become the newest Horsemen. Aww hell yeah! Loved everything about this. It was such a departure from what I had come to expect. The Horsemen were back, baby! (more on that in a bit)

That all time great WCW moment was followed by The Outsiders making their WCW PPV debut in an interview with Eric Bischoff which saw Nash powerbomb Sleazy E through a table. So conflicted! Bischoff was literally my least favorite person in the entire world. But Nash & Hall were somewhere between 3-5 on that ignominious list. So who do I root for here?? Fwiw I'd have the same reaction to the NWO vs. WCW storyline as a whole which is why it didn't work for me the same way it worked for most everybody else. It was heel vs. heel as far as I was concerned. Still, there's no denying this was a major moment. 

Main event was Luger/Giant for the WCW Championship which was almost an afterthought after the two and a half hours of greatness I have just described. Rewatched this a few months back. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered. But I will give them credit for coming up with a cool finish and largely winning over a justifiably burned out crowd. 

Verdict: Well, put it this way. In the late 2000s I came up with a list of my 100 favorite WCW matches. 6 of them were from this show, including Benoit/Sullivan in the Top 10 and Rey/Dean around 25-30. 

Epilogue

WCW was suddenly on fire. Even this diehard WWF fanboy was forced to admit it.

Yet more importantly, as far as I'm concerned, is this show lead to HORSEMANIA sweeping through the Baltimore suburbs. The Horsemen were the hottest thing in wrestling over the next two months in my neighborhood. The Summer of '96 was more like Summer of The Horsemen. The four fingered symbol of excellence was flashed every time my friends and I entered a room, greeted each other, or took a vacation photo. I'm pretty sure Flair Chopping each other like a bunch of idiots while WOOing was already a thing, but I'd be willing to wager it intensified during this period.

I've told the story before of the core four (Me, Brother, Cousin, best friend Rick) having cheap homemade tie dye Horseman shirts which we wore constantly because we were one cool clowder of cats. I was Flair (of course). Rick was Arn. Cousin was Benoit. Brother was MONGO. And the best part is everybody was happy with their role. For the record, we all loved MONGO as a Horseman. Plus my brother was a longtime fan of MONGO and the 1980s Chicago Bears. So it worked out perfectly.

Alas, it only took stupid WCW two months to squander all the good will they had accrued from Great American Bash when they had stupid Hogan beat The Giant and survive Flair a few days later. I just couldn't with this company anymore. Horsemen > NWO. Then. Now. Forever.

It's no secret that I am not a fan of modern wrestling. Yet I sincerely hope there is somebody somewhere out there who gets as much joy out of modern pay per views as I got out of this Great American Bash in 1996. 

*If I had to do it over again I'd bump Survivor Series 95, IYH Dec 95, and GAB 96 up to 4-5-6 and downgrade *spoiler alert* three great Wrestlemanias that most everybody loves to 7-8-9. Oh well..

Wrestlemania VI is a one match show in my book. Really had to rack my brain when this cracked 20 points in order to remember any matches from this show other than the main event. I eventually thought of 4 others without cheating. Still a pretty poor number... 

But what a main event! Hogan vs. Warrior! Champion vs. Champion! Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object! Dueling finisher kickouts*! For my money this is the first "epic" (as a style) match in WWF history. I considered it the GOAT match for 5 and a half years. Also erroneously assumed it was the 2nd biggest match of the modern era in terms of interest/dimes drawn/buyrate for over 20 years. Even as a young hater of both men, this clash of the titans had me on the edge of my seat. It was like this titanic struggle between evenly matched Greek gods. People criticize the finish for Hogan not playing dead forever, but I think it was the only logical way to end it. The winner was destined to only be a hair, or 0.1 seconds if you prefer, better than the loser. I like to call this the limited muscleman version of Flair/Steamboat.

That being said, I'm still not sure WM 6 cracks my Top 100 PPV list given the forgettable nature of everything else on the show.

*Probably the best use of the trope because it was the first and also because it made the most sense given their characters. Undertaker/Kane at WM 14 is also an acceptable answer. These are unstoppable, larger than life characters. Makes sense that it would take something extra to keep them down for 3 seconds.
===============
SummerSlam 92- Now this one I did consider for my list....for about 10 seconds. Would have a good shot at cracking my Top 30 though.

The big draw here is the Bret/Bulldog IC Title classic which is another match that I just knew was something special when I watched it for the first time over three years after it took place. Savage/Warrior gives this show a strong 1-2 punch. It's a good match bolstered by a cool storyline involving Flair & Perfect at their heelish best. Model/HBK is a lot of fun as a sports entertainmenty heel vs. heel match. Heel vs. Heel is probably the hardest match type to pull off and these guys nailed it. Money Inc/LOD and Natural Disasters/Beverlys are solid meat and potatoes tag team bouts from what I remember. I've actually seen a fairly popular reviewer call the Natural Disasters match his favorite on the show. How's that for a wild hot take? 

Have to dock it a little though for Undertaker/Kamala turning out to be a major disappointment. That was actually the match I was most excited for in real time with it edging out Savage/Warrior even with the strongly rumored heel turn in that WWF Championship encounter. 

Took me 20 years to get thru Warrior/Hogan bell to bell. Great match, but if Scott Hall didn't do a watch along on Youtube shitting on Warrior I never woulda bothered watching it "for real". That gif really killed the match imo.

NWO is one of those PPVs that gets brought up a lot, but never reaches that certain level of say WM17 does. The four way gets a ton of love, Trish/Steph was rated better than it had any right to be and the 2 mains are talked about 20 years later. Just not a show that instantly comes to mind when I think of great PPVs, even if it should. Also as a young Ness I was pretty arrogant thinking there's no way the title changes hands. They already did Rock/Austin at Mania and clearly the formula is heel Kurt vs. face Austin where it "matters". And then Rock wins and I'm like, you know nothing. I know everyone claimed it was always gonna be Austin/Rock, but you couldn't have told me at the time. It was set it stone. That's just the way it is bro!

Also I think this was the PPV that showed Earl is trash. In case it wasn't obvious before.

Oct 15, 2021 3:43:44 GMT @ness said:

NWO is...Just not a show that instantly comes to mind when I think of great PPVs, even if it should. 

Same here. There are a surprising amount of good 2000s B Pay Per Views like No Way Out 2001 that never even crossed my mind until I started doing research AFTER completing my ballot (lol) and seeing a few of them show up on other lists. 

The big draw here is HHH/Austin. I was wicked hyped for that one and it managed to somehow exceed my very high expectations to become my 2nd favorite match of the decade and a Top 10 match of all time in my book. Loved their take on the Rocky II finish. Austin losing also played into the "Austin NEEDS to win" story at WM 17. He had already fallen behind HHH. He couldn't fall behind The Rock as well. So he made a deal with the devil to ensure he wouldn't. It was actually really good storytelling.

Rock/Angle is also very good while Trish/Steph was a miracle match. I'm sure the cult favorite 4 Way was fine, but I honestly remember nothing about it. Rest of the card is also a blur. 

Wrestlemania VII- A step up from the previous two 'Manias but still not a show I considered for my list.

The clear highlight here is Warrior/Savage. That was my first Retirement Match so I was young and gullible enough to believe in the stipulation. Yesterday I called Hogan/Warrior the first "epic" (as a style) match that I saw. This would be the second. Though even as a kid I thought Warrior kicking out after all those flying elbow drops was ludicrous. But a vexed Warrior talking to his hands after Savage kicked out of his own finishing combo made up for it. That has to be the greatest reaction to a finisher kickout in wrestling history. The post-match reunion between Savage & Elizabeth is also classic stuff. Great match for sure.

Hogan/Slaughter's stock has risen in recent years after long being considered on the low end of 'Mania mains, but the truth is my lasting memory of this match is one of them being trapped forever in a Boston Crab like 2 inches from the ropes and never reaching up to cause the break. Again, even as a kid I thought that was silly.

This show also saw Taker's 'Mania debut in an easy win over Snuka and the fun Jake/Model Blindfold Match which is pretty much the definition of sports entertainment. A quick perusal of the results to refresh my memory reveals a lot of duds and two other fun undercard bouts in Harts/Nastys and Bulldog/Warlord. 

Verdict- Slightly above average show

7 I do love that sly WWE narrative of them being threatened so they changed venues and not just low ticket sales.

King of the Ring 1998- Penciled this in once we settled on 20. Thought it would make my list for sure. I was so blown away by this show (or at least Taker/Mankind) that I bought a tape of it a day or two later so I could watch the Taker/Mankind instant classic whenever I wanted. Still remember the AOL handle of the guy I bought the tape from too- SychoIn98.  

But it kept dropping as I thought of more cool shows and eventually fell out of my Top 20 entirely. Might not even make my Top 30 at this point. But I am glad it was recognized by the good people of PW. It was actually getting shut out until the final two voters came through in a big way.

Anyway, the big draw here is the iconic Hell In A Cell match which was damnedest thing I had seen up to that point.....and is still the most brutal wrestling match I ever saw. Austin/Kane was also pretty good with a finish I could get behind.

But the rest of the show is extremely not good. It's a mix of bad wrestling, forgettable matches, and booking I don't approve of. The wrong guy won KOTR in hindsight. Owen losing to a member of DX is never a good thing. We had to suffer through matches involving Dan Severn and the New Midnight Express on pay per view. Good grief! How did this company win the MNW again? This dummy was actually super hyped for the Baker Boy battle between Too Much and Al Snow. It ended up being the worst match of the year and one that set the business back 20 years (tm Good Ol' JR).

Verdict- We all remember Taker/Mankind as the highest of highs, but tend to forget this show also gave us the lowest of lows. In an earlier post I called another PPV "a sneaky good show." Well, now I'm starting to think this was a sneaky bad one and a half match show I spent 23 years overrating.

I've got some catching up to do.

Next batch to catch up on:

29. WWE Wrestlemania XX: 3-20

27. WWF Wrestlemania VI: 2-23

26. WWF SummerSlam 1992: 2-24

25. WWF Wrestlemania VII: 2-25

SummerSlam 91- Here is a step by step journey through my thought process the first time I received a ballot which included this show...

LOL really? Main event sucked and lacked intrigue. Probably the weakest WWF PPV main up to that point. Even the densest of marks (me) realized the middle aged midcard heel trio stood zero chance of beating Hogan & Warrior.

Meh. At least this show had the Bret/Perfect IC Title classic...

Oh wait. It also has the fun Bossman/Mountie match with the even more amusing post-match segments...

And the best Virgil vs. Dibiase match/moment too! Hmm...maybe this is another sneaky good show after all...

Confirmed! Because I just remembered the Savage/Elizabeth "match made in heaven" and the big post-wedding angle with Jake & Taker.

Verdict- The anti-King of the Ring 1998? When this project started I just assumed KOTR 98 would make my list with relative ease. Turns out it didn't. Meanwhile, I never even considered Summerslam 91, and even went so far as to initially scoff when I saw another poster have it on their list. Joke's on me because Summerslam '91 happens to be a pretty good show. Kudos to the three people who voted for it.

Can't say I've seen a single match from SS91 minus Bret/Perfect, and that was usually via downloading the match on it's own.

SS98 was the show that got me into wrestling in a big way. So much so that I was... disappointed when I finally saw it. I dunno for 30 (still a lot at the time imo) bucks I expected something... more. Still looking back minus the disappointment of the main event it was as excellent of a Mania follow up as you can get. It's that perfect sequel that takes the original and does everything right.

15. Summerslam 98- Like @ness I was hyped for this show. Unlike Ness I thought it delivered. Of course I didn't drop $30 on it either. My cousin had one of those illegal cable boxes and I watched it there for free.

Anyway, this was my highest ranked Summerslam (controversial opinion?). It's basically the Wrestlemania 14 of Summerslams when it comes to a show I was wicked hyped for that ended up delivering.

Austin/Taker was a Wrestlemania-worthy main event. They were the two biggest stars in the company and both were babyfaces. Making it the biggest Clash of Titans-style match WWF could produce at the time. It had hype. The match itself seems to have taken a hit in recent years, but I enjoyed it enough in a "good, but not great" sort of way. Loved Taker's big flying leg drop through the table.

Fwiw this Summerslam drew a whopping 700,000 buys. That's only 30,000 fewer than Wrestlemania XIV five months earlier. It's the highest number of any SummerSlam, and the 2nd highest drawing non-Wrestlemania PPV in the history of the company (behind only InVasion). 

The HHH/Rock Ladder Match gives the show a killer 1-2 punch and was actually my favorite bout on the card. I got Sting/Muta vibes from this one in that you just knew these young guys were destined for greatness. Sure enough, both would become WWF Champions within a year. Both guys were already super over as characters, but this was their first high profile must see match (though HHH did have the MSG Street Fight with Cactus on Raw in September 97). Also, how wild it is it that this was the first WWF Ladder Match in three years given their penchant for running gimmick matches into the ground just a few years later?

The undercard is also very strong with JJ/XPac, D'Lo/Val, and especially Shamrock/Owen being standouts. Even the mixed tag and Oddities/Kaientai accomplished what they set out to do by solidifying Sable's superstardom and providing a fun sports entertainmenty comedy bout with the good guys going over. Only real misfire on the show was the New Age Outlaws anticlimactic victory over Mankind in a one sided Handicap Match because of weird Kane reasons I'm blanking on at the moment.

This show also has the best poster so far. Just look at that beauty!  It earns additional bonus points for the Highway To Hell theme song. That's 50% of the reason I became an AC/DC fan (with the other 50% coming from watching all those ECW tapes around the same time).  

Gotta get caught up here...

NJPW Dominion 6.9 (2018): 1-19
Sad I was the only vote here, but not surprising. It was at this show that one Kenneth Omega won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Kazuchika Okada, and I, six or seven tall strong beers deep, shed a manly Canadian tear or three, having witnessed one of the greatest moments in modern wrestling history. The photo of Omega and Jericho together with the two biggest titles in NJPW after the show just threw my pride into overdrive. Amazing show.

NXT Takeover: Dallas: 1-15
Nobody else voted for this? Really? Not only was it a solid card up and down, but it had the greatest NXT match AND debut of all-time with Shinsuke Nakamura vs Sami Zayn.

NJPW Dominion 6.11 (2017): 1-14
God I wish Emperor made a list. Not that he would have voted for this show but still.
Okada/Omega time limit draw. Young Bucks vs Roppongi 3K in an incredible tag match. Suzuki defends the NEVER Openweight title against Goto. Tanahashi makes Naito tap in the IC title match. Michael Elgin gets the best match Cody has ever had out of him. GOD actually have a good match and it's against War Machine....such a good show.

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11: 1-11
I'm starting to get pissed off. It's like you guys don't even like wrestling.

One Night Stand 2006: 1-9
You're fucking kidding me. Granted, this wasn't as good as 2005 overall, but RVD beating Cena was one of the best moments ever, ESPECIALLY in the mid-2000's. COME ON.

NXT Takeover: New Orleans: 1-8
2nd best NXT Takeover ever gets no love.

AEW Double or Nothing 2019: 1-7
Jesus Christ.

WWE Wrestlemania 21: 1-4
To be fair I just needed to fill my list in and I remember liking this show back in the day.

WWE Wrestlemania 31: 1-1
I'm fine with this, as it was my "I need to finish this list," filler. But to be fair, it was a pretty solid show. Tag title opener was a lot of fun, Show winning the battle royale was fun, D-Bry winning the Ladder Match was cool, Orton hit that fucking WICKED RKO on Rollins, DX vs nWo was stupid as fuck but also cool, Rusev entered on a fucking TANK, and Rollins had one of the best cash-ins of all-time. Really, really good show, and not just because I watched it with friends and we were all fucking wasted.



Honorable mentions:
-ROH Driven almost made my list so happy to see someone else voted for it.

Oct 17, 2021 2:58:17 GMT RT said:

Gotta get caught up here...

Yeah, sorry for burning through these so quickly, but I'm going to be busy in November, and might not be around much, so I'm determined to wrap this up by Halloween. Probably shouldn't have started a countdown at this time in the first place. Though, in fairness to myself, I didn't know plans were going to change when I came up with the idea in late September. 

Oct 17, 2021 3:28:39 GMT Baker said:

Oct 17, 2021 2:58:17 GMT RT said:

Gotta get caught up here...

Yeah, sorry for burning through these so quickly, but I'm going to be busy in November, and might not be around much, so I'm determined to wrap this up by Halloween. Probably shouldn't have started a countdown at this time in the first place. Though, in fairness to myself, I didn't know plans were going to change when I came up with the idea in late September. 

No it's all good man. Go at whatever speed you want. I was totally ignoring this like "ah I'll post all my picks later," then next thing I know it's been like two weeks. :lol:

12. Anarchy Rulz 1999- Storytime? We'll see if I'm feeling it...

If Summerslam 98 is the Wrestlemania XIV of Summerslams than this is the Summerslam 98 of ECW pay per views. OK, I'll cut it out with the ham-fisted analogies going forward. But this one fits. Both promotions were red hot*. I was hyped for both shows. And they both delivered.

*ECW had just started airing on TNN. My excitement level was through the roof. I was wicked hyped to finally be watching ECW every week. I thought availability issues were the only thing holding ECW back up to this point. Also genuinely thought it was only a matter of time before they overtook WCW as the #2 promotion in the US. And after that, who knows? Maybe, just maybe, they could make a run at the big dog- WWF.
In hindsight I was an overly optimistic mark, but there really were big things happening in the Land of Extreme. This was definitely a promotion trending up. Fwiw the real time peak of my ECW fandom was roughly August 99-October 99. And wouldn't you know it? This show falls smack dab in the middle of that peak...

The big highlight here is the Awesome/Tanaka/Taz 3 Way for the ECW Championship. The big rumor going into this show was Taz possibly defecting to WWF. This match would determine whether or not those rumors were true. You have to understand Taz was my guy- My favorite ECW wrestler and 2nd favorite wrestler (behind Foley) in the entire business. So I was on the edge of my seat watching this. Only to see the nearly unbeatable Taz be eliminated in 2 minutes! I can still picture my cousin and I sitting there, dumbstruck, looking at each other with shocked faces, mouths agape, until one of us (I forget who) finally muttered a slow, drawn out, "ho-ly shit." A chapter in ECW history had closed. Taz was officially going to WWF. What would happen next?

What happened next was a masterpiece of both wrestling and booking. Awesome & Tanaka had their usual balls to the wall match as the locker room emptied to get a closer look at the man who would become their next standard bearer. Heyman bringing all the wrestlers out to watch was a brilliant touch. It really enhanced the atmosphere and made this feel like one of the biggest matches, if not THE biggest, in ECW history. That sense of Bigness is the reason this is my favorite Awesome/Tanaka encounter. Anyway, Mike Awesome would ultimately prevail. On that night (and only that one night, it would turn out  ) I was ready to follow my new champ to the promised land. The King was dead. Long live the king.

The best sort of wrestling (i.e. stuff involving Flair & Lawler) makes the viewer feel some sort of emotion. Well, this match caused this particular viewer to run the whole gamut of emotions...from shock to disappointment to suspense to a feeling of optimism that the future (of ECW) was going to be just fine. I could EASILY have turned on the match (and even the promotion itself) after my man Taz lost in two minutes, signifying the end of legendary ECW run. But Awesome & Tanaka wrestled so well, and ECW booked it in such a way, that shock and disappointment quickly morphed into "hanging on the edge of my seat suspense." And I didn't even have any attachment to Awesome & Tanaka! Think I had only seen one Tanaka match and zero Awesome ones up to that point. 

Moving on, Storm/Lynn was my 2nd favorite match on the show. It was a technical match done ECW-style. I tended to be a low vote on Lynn, and especially Storm, but I really dug this one. It's my favorite Lance Storm match and a strong contender for my favorite non-RVD Jerry Lynn match.

RVD/Balls was another good bout, and a personal vindication since "Balls Mahoney is underrated!" was one of my big talking points on Strictly ECW at the time. Coincidentally, it was an earlier RVD/Balls match I saw live at The Arena a few months earlier that made me think Mahoney was underrated in the first place.

I liked Sabu/Credible at the time....until the finish*. Thought it was pretty lousy last time I watched it a few years back though.
*The Impact Players got Sabu suspended for a few months. This was his big return match. I was expecting a feel good Sabu victory with him doing cool Sabu things to a hated heel. Only to have Heyman swerve us by having his stupid pet project go over....again. I was not a happy camper.

Don't really remember the Tajiri/Crazy/Guido 3 Way. They wrestled approximately a million times and they all sort of blend together for me. But I'm sure it was their usual good (albeit forgettable) actionfest.

Dreamer/Raven vs. Corino/Rhino was a foregone conclusion (heel team was still low on the totem pole) and just a way to showcase the new tag champs, in particular the recently returned Raven.

Then there's the usual undercard anarchy(!) you got on every ECW show. Again, I forget the exact details, but I'm sure New Jack showed up at some point to beat on a jabroni heel or two and we all popped for it. 

Verdict- The right show at the right time with one bonafide ECW classic, two additional very good matches, and another solid bout or two. What's not to like?

Wrestlemania X- Didn't vote for it. Didn't even strongly consider voting for it. I do get it though. WM 10 produced two of the greatest matches in WWF history. In fact, I'm pretty sure the very first Greatest Match countdown I ever came across was DeathValleyDriver's "Greatest WWF Matches of the 90s" deal in 2001 which saw Bret/Owen and Shawn/Razor finish 1-2. Also fairly certain that DVDVR countdown is what inspired my annoying obsession with rating all things wrestling-related. DVDVR has so much to answer for...

So, yeah, Bret/Owen and the Ladder Match rule. They created stars and went on to inspire generations of wrestlers. Totally get why people would vote for WM 10 based on those two matches alone.

But I didn't because the rest of the show is very not good. One WWF Championship match (Yoko/Lex) sucked and the other (Bret/Yoko) is ok at best. Savage/Crush was weird and also bad. The matches I didn't mention are forgettable filler not worth mentioning.

Though I should take a little time to put over the booking. Owen beating Bret rocketed him (hehe see what I did there?) to superstardom. Owen coming back out at the end as Bret was celebrating was another nice little touch. And maybe this show would have made my list after all if Perfect had stuck around for Round 2 of his feud with Luger which was set up in the Lex/Yoko match.  

In the end I had to ask myself "Would I rather vote for a two match show or a show with maybe one great match and 4-5 good or fun ones?" I chose the latter but, again, can totally see why others would choose the former. 

19 I did a lot of rewatching thanks to places like kazaa and limewire.

X Savage/Crush is the only match anyone will mention besides the two, but I've never liked it much. Dunno if I've even seen the thing start to finish or just the goods.

Wrestlemania 19- I've always been the low vote on this show so I'm pleased with PW for not going overboard on it. Outside of the Top 15 was the best I could realistically hope for. That 9.41 Cagematch rating is ludicrous imo.
*Keep in mind I only saw this show the one time on the night it aired. It's entirely possible I was just grumpy that night. With that out of the way, let's get to potentially the most overrated PPV I ever watched..

The Good: Michaels/Jericho ruled. Easy MOTN. My favorite Jericho match up to that point....and probably still my favorite Jericho match tbh. Loved him going super heel in the post-match.

I had negative interest in Hogan/Vince. This was basically penciled in as my piss break match if I had to go. It ended up greatly exceeding my expectations (which were admittedly zero) to be the 2nd best MOTN and one of my favorite matches of either guy. The scene of a bloody Vince rising from the dead was like something straight out of a horror movie. That should be an iconic gif if it isn't already. Should have known not to doubt Big Match Vince.

Also actually liked the much maligned HHH/Booker match. Thought it was Booker's best WWF singles match up to that point...and probably still is. Harlem Hangover!

The Underwhelming: Oh boy. I'll try not to turn this into another storytime. No guarantees though.

Brock/Angle- It was hard for me to get into this match because I was an Angle lover/Brock hater and all signs pointed to a(nother) Brock coronation. Probably spent the whole match dreading the inevitable. I don't think Brock catches nearly enough flack for botching the finish of the Wrestlemania main event! I mean, could you imagine if an IWC villain like Hogan, Warrior, or HHH had done that? We'd never hear the end of it! But since it's Brock, most people just shrug it off.

Rock/Austin- I thought this was actively bad. Like to the point where it became an unintentional comedy match since I distinctly remember laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Pretty sure this was the first time I thought a finisher fest jumped the shark. I read a review just now to refresh my memory and here are the stats- 2 Stunner kickouts, 3 Rock Bottom kickouts, and 1 People's Elbow kickout for a grand total of 6 finisher kickouts. Learn a new move, my dudes. Now I'm curious to find the all time record for finisher kickouts in a match. Next project? This has to be up there, and I'm guessing it was the undisputed champ circa 2003.

Matt/Rey and the Smackdown Triple Threat Tag Title Match- These pairings produced better matches multiple times on Smackdown. 

Forgettable Filler: Everything else, inexplicably including an Undertaker match. smh.

Verdict: Not even close to 9.41/10

Got the order wrong, PW

It goes XXX > XX > X

XXX makes me wonder if 2-3 great matches or moments is all you need.

19 mains did do a lot of kick outs and this was before finisher spam was the norm.

Royal Rumble 2001- Good show, but another one I rate a little lower than everybody else due to liking two of the big matches a little less than most people. Did not make my list. Would likely crack a Top 40 though. 

A lot of people call this the GOAT Rumble. I am not one of those people. In fact, the first time I ever saw people calling this the GOAT Rumble was right here on PW, and the whole time I'm thinking "Surely they must mean 2002?"   I just found the following year's Rumble much more memorable. And of course there's always 1992... Anyway, all I really remember about this are Austin winning, Kane's domination, Haku's return, and the comedy bits with Drew Carey & HTM.

Jericho/Benoit is the other match I'm a low vote on. A singles Ladder Match had suddenly become passé in my eyes after seeing all those E&C/Hardys/Dudleys stunt shows because two guys doing crazy stuff just couldn't compare to six guys going balls to the wall while being cycled in and out to keep the pace up. All I really remember from this is Jericho applying a Tartantula-style maneuver atop the ladder and ultimately winning.

Speaking of E&C and the Dudleys, I rewatched their match a few months back for the Match Review thread and found it aged like fine wine. Good stuff.

Angle & HHH were my two favorite wrestlers at the time so theirs is the match I was most looking forward to in real time. It underwhelmed. Those guys just never clicked together. They had 3 high profile PPV matches from September 2000-February 2002 and all 3 of them underwhelmed.  

A quick search reveals Ivory beat Chyna in the one match I blanked on from this show. Assuming this is the one where Chyna collapsed due to a lingering neck injury? If so, it was more angle than match to build to the big payoff at Wrestlemania. 

Wrestlemania 30- I actually saw this show. It's one of the few 2010s pay per views I watched. It's also the final Wrestlemania I've seen to date and the last of the 6 pay per views I (mostly) watched at a sports bar. 

Show kicked off in style with an in ring segment featuring Austin/Rock/Hogan. Not gonna lie. This was the highlight of the night for me. Just three ultra charismatic company legends riffing while an entire sports bar is marking out. There's something to be said for being in the presence of a hundred grown men (and like 5 women) marking out like they were children all over again. Vince doing what he does best- putting smiles on people's faces. Favorite part of this very fun segment was Hogan's "Silverdome" botch  Hulkster out there reliving his glory days, brother.

The Daniel Bryan vs. Evolution matches were good, though I'm an outlier in preferring the Triple Threat over the Triple H bout. Wyatt/Cena was alright. Wrong guy went over though. Oh well. At least Wyatt came off as a superstar during his entrance. Shield/Team Attitude Era was a disappointing quickie that would have been more at home on an episode of Raw. Drawing a blank on the Andre Battle Royal other than Cesaro getting his Wrestlemania Moment by slamming Big Show over the top to win. Remember everybody thinking this was the beginning of a big Cesaro push. Turns out everybody was wrong. Then came a slow, plodding affair between Brock & Taker which ended in the shocker of the decade when Brock ended The Streak. 



Yep. I settled up and stormed out like a big baby. Though in hindsight I can give WWE some credit for getting me to react like it was 95-97 all over again despite having been largely detached from wrestling over the previous 5 years. It was still terrible though. 

Anyway, a few days later I watched the Bryan/Orton/Batista match on Youtube for completist reasons/just to see what all the fuss was about. 

Verdict- I get why people who were more invested in the product, Daniel Bryan's story in particular, would rate this show highly. Bryan's coronation and Brock ending The Streak are defining moments of the decade that people will still be talking about 20 years from now. 

16. ECW Heatwave 1998 was a good show from top to bottom with six matches, none of them bad. Might have rated it even a little higher had I seen the full show live. Only saw the 2nd half live at my cousin's place for reasons I forget. Wouldn't see the full show until a few years later when I picked up the Pioneer tape at a local mall. Anybody else remember those Pioneer tapes?

We kick things off with two solid matches between guys embroiled in lengthy midcard workrate feuds with the bad guys go over as Credible defeats Lynn and Candido beats Lance Storm. Then Tanaka goes over Awesome in the MOTN as they bring their touring match to the Land of Extreme in most people's favorite Tanaka/Awesome match, though I'll always be an Anarchy Rulz (and even One Night Stand) guy. That was followed up by RVD & Sabu retaining the ECW Tag Titles over the debuting high flying and hardcore duo of Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki. My man Taz would then get his revenge against Bam Bam Bigelow in my 2nd favorite MOTN. The big high spot in this one was an homage to the big stunt in a pretty famous PPV match between the two from 5 months earlier. And finally the fans were sent home happy with the good guys prevailing over those dastardly Dudleys in a vintage ECW main event brawl. 

Verdict- Many rate this as the GOAT ECW PPV. I won't go that far, being more of a Barely Legal & Anarchy Rulz guy, but #16 overall is still nothing to sneeze at.

Money In The Bank 2011- One of only two shows in the Top 29 that I haven't watched. All the others I've seen at least 75% of.
=============
11. Royal Rumble 2000- Thought this would crack my Top 10 when the countdown began. Ended up nitpicking it down a few spots because it does have some bad/disappointing stuff. Still, #11 is not too shabby for the highest ranked Royal Rumble on my list.

The Sublime

-HHH/Cactus is my all time favorite singles match and 2nd favorite overall match. The build was so good it had me hyped in spite of viewing Triple H as an overpushed, failing project. Basically the WWF version of Justin Credible. To his credit, Trips stepped up big time here. This is where he finally got over with me as a main event player... This is when he solidified himself as THE GAME.

Up to this point all the great Foley matches (at least in WWF & WCW) saw him take unbelievable amounts of punishment while his opponents got off relatively scot free. Well, here HHH took a beating for the ages (that leg gash was especially nasty) and still came out on top. In one night he went from Justin Credible to a more hateable Ric Flair as far as I was concerned.

-Taz's debut. Again, I was wicked hyped. And again WWF delivered. I did worry that WWF fans might not know who Taz was. Turned out my fears were unfounded. MSG was just as into Taz as my cousin and I were watching at his house. I was already loving that proponent of the Three I's, Kurt Angle, but had no issues with him in the role of sacrificial lamb. It fit his character and plus he's in there with TAZ. Taker & Kane were the only guys who could realistically last 5 minutes with the Human Suplex Machine.....and they'd lose, too. Visions of Taz main eventing Wrestlemania for years to come danced through my head. Unfortunately, Taz would peak right here on night one in the fed. He was already jobbing a few days later. The man who spent years creating just another victim soon became just another victim himself. Sad. Oh well. At least we got this one magical night out of Taz in WWF. 

The Great- Hardys & Dudleys carried on the tradition of great Rumble tag matches as they did their hardcore and high flying thing in the first WWF Tables Match. This ruled and would have been MOTN on most shows. Had some wicked bumps and jumps. I was also tickled pink to see the Dudleys hit a homerun on PPV. My boys had officially arrived. First my guys the Hardys make it big. Now the Dudleys. Everything was coming up Milhouse. 

The Good- I feel like you have to actively try in order to screw up a Royal Rumble match (hello 1999 and mid 2010s) so this Rumble was fun as most of them are. I was still a big Rock fan, so him winning was cool. Especially when the alternative was the yucky Big Show. It also had the memorable Rikishi & Too Cool dance along with the comedic Kaientai spots and subsequent big bumps.

The Disappointing- The IC Title Triple Threat because the only cool person in the match, Hardcore Holly, did not leave with the belt. 

The Disappointingly Bad- I was weirdly hyped for Acolytes/New Age Outlaws. APA was gaining steam and I just had a hunch they were going to dethrone the stupid Outlaws here. I also thought they might be able to beat the Outlaws kicking and screaming into a rare good match. I was wrong on both counts. Those darn Outlaws won in a disappointing quickie that didn't even go three minutes. Oh well. I guess not everything was coming up Milhouse after all. I'd have to wait another month before the NAO were finally put out to pasture courtesy of the Dudleys. 

The Ugly- Mae Young "flashes" us. Gross. Literally the deciding factor to bump this out of my Top 10 in favor of Spring Stampede 99.

Oct 16, 2021 4:24:57 GMT 🤯 said:

I've got some catching up to do.

Next batch to catch up on:

29. WWE Wrestlemania XX: 3-20

Starting here. @ness had a pretty good and concise summary post, which I recall legitimately liking because it mostly captured my thoughts and feelings re: WMXX.

My recollection of my real-time reaction and perception was thinking it was a good-to-great show, but could've/should've been better, and in many ways really felt like the end of an era... At least for me as a fan.

I'd been on a streak of ordering Mania PPVs from WrestleMan X-Seve through WMXX, and I recall feeling like the ranking went WrestleMan X-Seve, WMXIX, WMXX, WMX8. After the WrestleMania WatchThru, I think that order still holds for me.

Anyway...

Since I have nothing really new or fresh to add about WMXX as it occurred in reality, let me use this as yet another opportunity to vent on how/why it could've been/should've been better.

The dominoes were all lined up IMO for WMXX to be like this artful homage to WMX.

HHH & HBK had fought to a draw in a last man standing match for the WHC... Perfectly acceptable setup for a ladder match to settle the dispute a decade after the gimmick debuted on PPV in the WWF.

Eddie & Chavo were having family issues, and presumably could've been that hot Bret/Owen opener. Best case worst case, Kurt can be slotted in as an acceptable Owen substitute if we think of Chavo more as a Bruce or Keith or even Jim Neidhart, I suppose.

Lesnar as the Yokozuna is on his way out, but has the opportunity to make Benoit as Bret. I can't think of a non-convoluted way of having two WWE title matches, so we have Big Show as Yokozuna Lite helping to make Lex Cena over the US belt.

Undertaker returns for that Earthquake-like squash on the unmasked Kane's Adam Bomb.

Rock & Sock make for a better mixed tag unit than Doink & Dink, just as Evolution clicks far better than Bam Bam & Luna.

The tag title matches could've taken a better cue from WMX. I know Strobe dislikes the idea, but I feel like a champ vs. champ showcase pitting RAW's RVD & Booker T against SmackDown!'s WGTT could've been a great match and the impetus to split up WGTT in the ensuing draft.

The Women's title is featured with more of a spotlight than it had been in years on both shows, although WMXX really could've done without the Playboy tag.

I guess Jericho/Christian works as either the Savage/Crush blood feud grudge match, or perhaps the Canadian side of the Eddie/Chavo coin for another homage to Bret/Owen?

Thinking odd man out in this scenario becomes Goldberg, so maybe I let Chavo shine against Eddie and run Kurt/Goldberg stemming from the Rumble just to have a WWF/WWE "homegrown" guy run WCW's Goldberg outta town?

Anyway... Forgot what I was going, and need to refill coffee before this meeting. Fuck this OBSTACLE!!!

I haven't watched the 2011 Money in the Bank since it aired but from memory fans loved it because Punk and Christian won the belts and Daniel Bryan won the Money in the Bank. Everything outside of the main event was OK otherwise this was the best built singles match since Shawn Michaels/Undertaker II @ Wrestlemania XXVI. The reason was that fans knew the rest of the show was largely BS that didn't take itself too seriously but they believed in Punk and he made fans care about the result. I don't really remember a lot about the match other than Cena busting out an Emerald Flowsion and Punk scouting a lot of Cena's routines. Otherwise the most memorable spot was Punk blowing Vince McMahon a kiss as he ran away with the championship.

At the time I remember being really upset that Punk only took one show off before returning but the WWE was never trying to be high art and they simply didn't have the talent pool to put all those eggs in the Punk basket and have him take a 3 month vacation. I think the cool thing that came out of it was that it led to NXT and the WWE became a little more open minded with their roster. They started to move away from the David Otungas, Jackson Andrews (remember him?), Mason Ryans, Lucky Cannons etc.

Punk/Cena was great but I feel like their later matches kind of diminished the match. I remember really enjoying the Night of Champions 2012 clash and a ton of LOVE the February 2013 RAW match which felt like the unofficial Wrestlemania main event.

As far as the Royal Rumble 2000, I think any show that took place at Madison Square Garden has the inside running. It's the homebase and they always pack in something extra so even though it has an appearance of a one match show I feel the mid-card matches pop off better than they should. Also sometimes you can just appreciate a good mid-card match with a couple of neat spots like the Hardyz-Dudleys affair. I'm right with you Bake on the awesome HHH-Cactus build but more importantly the New Age Outlaws vs. Acolytes build. I think that's one reason why the show didn't do so well with me because I'm still bummed out that the McMahon-Helmsley faction did so well on the night.

I thought the concensus was that the 2001 Royal Rumble is a top tier Royal Rumble right alongside 1992 and 2004? Rumble matches typically suffer from guys leaning on ropes not doing a whole lot so the 2001 Rumble was refreshing in how it switched gears going from the hardcore guys with a lot of flash eliminations to the hosses before you had all these stars. Maybe it comes down to how much Kane you can tolerate and even though it's 50+ minutes of the big red machine dare I say Kane was one of the best anchors in Royal Rumble history, Rick Martel eat your heart out? Pacing is such an important ingredient and outside of some gratutious outside the ring brawling which is a turn off in a match where the floor is supposed to be lava I thought the match nailed it.

I could see an argument for the 2002 Rumble and I'll admit I'm probably bias being more enamored with a returning Austin winning the Rumble over double denim HHH. Perfect's return was a huge moment that was completely lost on me since by the second half of his WCW run he was mostly a mid-card job guy putting over Shawn Stasiak.

MITB11 was probably one of the first shows that I thought... yeah that's smark bait. Of course they took everything back at a "real" PPV like the following Summerslam to let us know who's boss.

RR00 feels like it should be a 1-match show. Although with regards to the street fight, it often doesn't get a lot of love I've found. Like you seem to have to find specific topics for it to be mentioned as a great match. Top HHH? Sure. Top Rumble performances? Yeah. But a regular countdown or discussion it almost has become a hidden gem. But yeah I'm sure the rumble was servicable but I recall good things about the opener too. And of course Mae Young titties. To go from The Kat a month before...