While last week’s column talked about the world that surrounds professional wrestling, I want to focus on one of the biggest moneymakers for sports entertainment in the last few decades: the pay-per-view.
I still remember when I was young and my uncle brought over a tape of the Royal Rumble. It was amazing! This was stuff that I never saw on television – of course, I never watched wrestling at the time. I was young – forgive me!
But I began to watch and I began to realize that something very different was taking place during these “pay-per-view” events. You would see wrestlers win title belts, new wrestlers debut, major stars from other organizations appear on the competition’s show (oh my God!), and matches where the quality was superior to the generic Ultimate Warrior vs. Iron Mike Sharpe matches from Sundays on Wrestling Challenge.
Wrestling pay-per-views were great! And then World Championship Wrestling and Eric Bischoff aggressively entered the field by acquiring major WWE properties and putting on shows that outperformed the circus that was the competition. I distinctly remember marking my calendar to make sure that I didn’t miss major WCW pay-per-views, though that lessened as time went on and the promotion walked towards its end.
Remember when wrestling pay-per-views were the real “must see TV” shows on Sunday nights? Think back to the last major WWE pay-per-view, Unforgiven. This is a show where the Undertaker made his return. How many times has the Undertaker made his return in the last few years? I’m the man’s biggest fan, but sometimes the same schtick gets boring after a while.
You also saw Matt Hardy and MVP continue their on-air gimmicks of hating each other, yet retaining the Smackdown tag team titles. John Cena and his father gained a measure of retribution against Randy Orton in a match that did little to progress the storyline. Triple H indirectly booked himself to victory over one of tomorrow’s brightest stars (sorry folks, but when you’re married to the boss’ daughter and she happens to be the main booker, every match you win is indirectly booked by you).
Nothing new so far with Unforgiven. Candace Michelle beat Beth Phoenix in a “who cares” contest while Batista, thank God, took the World Title away from the Great Khali. London and Kendrick fell to Cade and Murdoch and CM Punk retained his title against Elijah Burke.
Look at those results, folks.
Who cares?
Why does any wrestling fan buy pay-per-views any more? The results that you paid $35 or $50 (or whatever these things cost these days) to see could have easily taken place on one of the free television shows. Randy Orton vs. John Cena? You could catch that match on RAW (with some variations) on any given Monday night. Same goes for Cade and Murdoch against London and Kendrick.
You could make the same determination with the ECW Championship match as well as the Women’s Title match. I guess you might as well say that the Batista vs. Khali showdown was something that we’ve seen before, too. Ha! Even the Undertaker’s return has been done to death (pardon the pun).
So I’m asking the open question to get a response here, folks. Why buy pay-per-views any more? There’s nothing exciting, there’s nothing “new,” there are few title changes, storylines are not greatly advanced or ended unless it’s WrestleMania (which is an entirely different show)…
If you do the logical math, there really is no need to buy the pay-per-views any more because you’ll see the same action (and sometimes better action) on free television.
Either WWE is brilliant and they know something we don’t, or those who buy pay-per-views are just getting hoodwinked.
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