Not only that, but they’re so on the nose with the concept that the commercials are all built around the song and feature people watching wrestling matches at a drive-in theater. Truly a show with the finger on the pulse of American youth. More’s the pity, because it’s looking like a pretty hot show with a main event that lots of people are looking forward to.
But, lest we forget, not every attempt at creating a new wrestling show tradition can be a “WrestleMania” or a “Starrcade.” Although, “Starrcade” is still totally available for them to use as a PPV name and they own the rights and everything. Just saying.
MORE: Seven “WrestleMania” matches that failed in every way
Here’s five other attempts at creating a new IP where they probably shouldn’t have bothered.
No. 1: “Fatal 4-Way” (WWE, 2010)
Back in 2010, the decision came down from Vince McMahon that all of the PPV shows moving forward would be themed, because people love themes! The kernel of the idea is solid, I guess. “Hell in the Cell” is a concept that people like and that tends to draw money, so why not just make a whole show based on the match? Ditto for the “TLC” match and “Money in the Bank.”
OK, but that’s only three ideas, and there’s 12 shows a year to be filled. So what we got was stuff that really started to stretch the concept of a “special event," most notably the blatant filler show called “Fatal 4-Way” in June of 2010. From the perspective of being newsworthy, it wasn’t the worst: It actually produced two World title changes and a Divas title change on the same show.
However, there’s four-way matches all the time in WWE, on house shows and TV! This wasn’t exactly a unique concept that people were clamoring to pay money to see, like they would with “Royal Rumble.” Not only that, but the name itself is completely boring and doesn’t tell you anything about what the matches are, aside from the fact that there are four people involved. Thankfully this concept was dropped after the one show.
MORE: Money in the Bank: The stories behind the stories
No. 2: “Taboo Tuesday” (WWE, 2005-06)
In 2005, a miraculous thing happened: Vince McMahon discovered that the internet existed! Given how many times per show we have to hear about the WWE’s “social media presence” and amount of Twitter followers these days, it’s kind of hard to remember a time when WWE wasn’t all over the web.
But then given the fact that Vince literally couldn’t figure out how to dial a phone on national TV that one time, we probably shouldn’t be that shocked it took him so long. But regardless, the idea was relatively solid: Fans would go on the WWE website and vote for who they wanted to see in various matches, and surprisingly WWE actually adhered to the results of the vote and didn’t just do what they wanted.
Side note: After a few years of awkwardness resulting from the “wrong” people winning votes, the process ended up being choices of match types, like voting on a choice between “Street Fight," “No Holds Barred” or “Hardcore."
Regardless, the first two years of this revolutionary new concept featured a name for the show that had absolutely nothing to do with the content: “Taboo Tuesday”. The show was an experiment with running PPV on a day of the week other than Sunday, and I suppose they wanted to have “Tuesday” in the name so people knew about the different day. But taboo? What exactly was taboo about the show? I mean, they had to scale the 18,000 seat Bradley Center down to 3,500 due to poor ticket sales, so I guess it was “taboo” in the sense that no one wanted to be there.
They tried again in 2005, but it again flopped on the oddball day of the week, and for the remainder of the concept’s life it aired on a normal Sunday as “Cyber Sunday” instead. That name at least makes sense.
MORE: “Money in the Bank” briefcases that were wasted
No. 3: “Roadblock: End of the Line” (WWE, 2016)
And now it’s another attempt by WWE to push the envelope and shift the paradigm or whatever. In 2016, the WWE Network was having issues getting subscribers to stick around, so they commissioned a series of surveys to find out what people wanted out of the service. The No. 1 thing that the public wanted was more live content, so we got a soul-crushing 15 major shows — second only 2006’s 16 shows — plus a couple of WWE Network-exclusive events.
After 14 of them during the course of the year, they apparently ran out of every other possible name and we were left with the incredibly awkward “Roadblock." But not just “Roadblock,” oh no. For some reason they felt the need to add the even more awkward subtitle “End of the Line” to the name, and then made sure to say the entire name as “Roadblock End of the Line” every time they mentioned the show on “Raw” or “SmackDown” because of their weird branding thing.
But why is it even a “Roadblock?" Since they’re all about the road metaphors for “WrestleMania,” shouldn’t the name symbolize something about moving forward instead of stopping? And what exactly about the show was the “end of the line?" In fact, the main event was Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens, and they ended up having a rematch at “Royal Rumble.”
Overall, the name didn’t make sense, sounded forced and overly “branded," and was actually opposite of the message they were trying to convey. WWE is seemingly cutting back a bit on shows this year, so hopefully this name gets cut back along with that.
MORE: Daniel Bryan teasing in-ring return?
No. 4: “Sin/Greed” (WCW, 2001)
I feel like we need to pick on WCW for a bit, because they’ve really come up with some clunkers when they didn’t have Dusty Rhodes around to brainstorm for them. Dusty is generally credited with coming up with all the really good ones (“Starrcade,” “Clash of the Champions,” “Fall Brawl,” “Slamboree”) because he was a very creative guy.
By 2001, however, the company was on its last legs and the remaining people in charge — understandably desperate for any kind of spark — went with the more artsy approach of names that didn’t have anything to do with wrestling. Specifically, the witty January name of “Souled Out” was replaced in 2001 by “Sin." What does “sin” have to do with the four-way main event or any of the storylines running at that point, you might ask? Good question. It was really just change for the sake of change, as they were trying to “rebrand” themselves as something different. It didn’t work.
The final WCW PPV, in March 2001, was similarly confusing, called “Greed." I guess there was supposed to be some kind of vague “Seven Deadly Sins” motif running through the year, although the February show was called “SuperBrawl Revenge” and the scrapped April show was supposed to be called “The Big Bang," so really I’ve got nothing.
Either way, both the January and March shows featured names that were generic and completely non-descriptive, and not surprisingly were two of the least-purchased PPV shows in the history of pro wrestling.
MORE: Seven gimmicks intended for someone else entirely
No. 5: “It’s Time” (WWE, 1996)
Back to WWE to end things, although this one is at least explainable. WWE used to send out information for advertising their upcoming events months in advance, and in 1996 they were in the midst of running their “In Your House” mini-PPVs to keep pace with WCW’s schedule. So to keep things interesting, each monthly show would have a theme, like “Mind Games” or “Revenge of the Taker” or whatever.
The December 1996 show was supposed to be built around new WWF champion Vader as of the point when they sent out promotional materials in August of 1996. Vader’s catchphrase was “It’s Vader Time," so that all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, by October there was some personality conflicts brewing between Shawn Michaels and Vader, and Michaels decided he didn’t want to lose the belt to Vader and instead wanted Sid to get it. Which is what happened, and we ended up with a December PPV called “It’s Time” that featured a main event of WWF champion Sid defending against Bret Hart.
This might have led you to wonder what exactly it was time for, but then no one bought that show anyway so it’s likely no one cared. Ironically, Vader — the person who the show was named after — was injured and didn’t even wrestle on the show, and the mini-PPV concept was retired a few months later.
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