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Welcome to the latest Roundtable discussion here at iFight365.com where this week we ask: Given the atrocious Victory Road PPV that TNA recently presented us with, what is the worst PPV of all time?
James Mustoe: To me that would have to be ECW’s December to Dismember in 2006. This was a truly atrocious card with no matches announced bar the main event prior to a week before the show. All of the undercard matches were pretty much actively bad, bar the opening match of MNM vs. Hardy’s (a RAW team vs. a Smackdown team). The main event itself, a ‘hardcore’ Elimination Chamber match, was brutal in that (i) the concept of the match was a WWE idea, (ii) Test and Bob Holly were in it, (iii) Advertised participant and ECW legend Sabu was removed with no prior warning on the PPV and replaced with the aforementioned Holly, (iv) the match was designed to showcase the green and not over Bobby Lashley, (v) The most popular guy in the match, RVD, was eliminated first, and finally (vi) defending champion Big Show was totally knackered and virtually immobile. Not a good combination for the match you’re hoping to sell a PPV on. Add to this Paul Heyman’s last WWE appearance in a noticeably pissed off promo, and a very short running time and you have a true disaster of a show.
Mark Bright: This was a difficult question to answer, for a few reasons. Firstly, there are some terrible PPVs that are saved by shining lights of greatness. WrestleMania 13 was an awful show, besides having arguably the greatest match of all time on there. Great American Bash 2004 had a run of midcard matches in Luther Reigns vs. Charlie Haas, Sable vs. Torrie Wilson, Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn and Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly, plus a main event of Undertaker murdering Paul Bearer, all of which was completely shit, but JBL vs. Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero were both excellent, and different, matches that make for a memorable PPVs.
Another reason is that WCW and ECW PPVs were never shown over here in the UK and therefore the worst of their shows I’ve never seen, both from the dying years and also the infamous WCW 1991 Great American Bash “Flair Protest Show.” I’ve also never seen Heroes Of Wrestling, which tends to come up a lot as an answer to this question.
TNA’s Victory Road from last month is a contender as none of the matches I’d rank above ** and one, the infamous Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell T match, is way into the negative star territory, but TNA is a joke of a company who have had several awful PPVs which would be a contender for this.
But my choice is from December 2006, ECW December To Dismember. This show being bad stands out because, of the three WWE-ran ECW PPVs, the other two are two of the most memorable PPVs of the decade. This show was a complete disaster. It did 90,000 buys, which is by far the lowest for any WWE PPVs. It killed the idea of ECW having separate brand PPVs to the point that it’s never been tried again. There were only two matches announced before the show, the opener between MNM and The Hardy Boyz, and the ECW Title Elimination Chamber match. But even that got changed the day of the show, as Sabu was taken out in a backstage segment during the show, to be replaced by Bob Holly. Then the match sucked, mainly because they got rid of popular babyfaces CM Punk and Rob Van Dam quickly, leaving WWE’s overpushed pet project Bobby Lashley to run through Test and The Big Show to win the title and close the PPVs. Seriously, Bobby Lashley, Test, and The Big Show as the last three in an Elimination Chamber was the main event closing scene of a PPVs.
Oh, and if anyone bought the PPV for the two announced matches and was expecting the card to be filled out with a watchable midcard, they were dead wrong. Instead, they got Balls Mahoney vs. Matt Striker in a match that fucking sucked. They got Daivari, managed by The Great Khali vs. Tommy Dreamer in a match that fucking sucked when I had the misfortune of seeing it live the week before this PPV and sucked on this PPV as well. Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay beat Tony Mamaluke and Little Guido in a match that not only sucked but saw Burke win with Jeff Jarrett’s finisher followed by Terkay hitting Samoa Joe’s finisher post-match, which lead to the whole crowd chanting TNA, the only time I can remember it happening on a WWE show. They also got Kelly Kelly and Mike Knox losing to Ariel and Kevin Thorn in a terrible mixed tag match. Oh, and the PPV only lasted around 2 hours and 15 minutes. So not only did they provide a shitty product, they provided a criminally short shitty product so fans felt ripped off in two different ways. Truly the worst PPV of all time.
Daniel Short: TNA Victory Road 2009 will certainly go down in history as one of the most terrible wrestling pay-per-view shows ever. As for the worst of all-time, it might be possible. However, one show comes to mind that immediately trumps it. A wrestling pay-per-view show so horrible that it is never looked upon in a positive light: Heroes of Wrestling.
In a misconceived attempt to capitalize on the success of professional wrestling taking place in 1999, Bill Stone and Fosstone Productions wanted to put together a series of nostalgic-based wrestling shows of superstars from the 80’s and early 90’s. And man did the first show perform badly. Just about everything on the show was brutally bad, from the in-ring action to the announcing by Randy Rosenbloom, who was replacing a sick Gordon Solie. The only decent thing that happened on the show was the Too Cold Scorpio versus Julio Fantastico match, but even then they couldn’t make the show any better.
The show is quite infamous for two matches, the first being The Bushwhackers versus Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik. Boy oh boy oh boy was this just bad. Sheik and Volkoff could barely move as it was and usual Bushwhacker fare was about as bad as one would remember. Nothing went right with this one.
And then came the main event. From the get-go, it was a disaster. Jake “The Snake” Roberts came out and was supposed to cut a promo on his opponent Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. As soon as he appeared, all could see that he appeared heavily intoxicated and very much under the influence of something. He slurred his way through the interview and then barely managed to get into the ring where he used the snake to visually illustrate masturbation before apparently passing out.
What attempt did the promoters do to salvage the match? Having King Kong Bundy and Yokozuna, whose own match was cut, added to make the match a tag team affair with Bundy teaming with Neidhart and Yoko teaming with Jake. Yoko looked so much heavier than he was when last seen and the slow nature of everyone in the ring was nothing short of a train wreck. The kind that made you want to run away in horror.
As bad as TNA Victory Road 2009 was, and could easily be ranked among the worst pay-per-views of all-time, I don’t think it is the worst of all. Not when a show like Heroes of Wrestling is forever remembered with great infamy.
Michael Campbell: There have been many Pay Per View offerings over the years, from all quarters, that have proven to be less than worthwhile. From the lofty minds of overly ambitious regional promoters, to the biggest stage imaginable in Vince McMahon’s playground, to the bingo halls of ECW, and Time Warner’s check-book, we’ve seen it all. WCW supplied us an endless torrent of garbage at the beginning of the Nineties, which was only made watchable, by the likes of Ricky Steamboat, Steve Austin, Sting, Rick Rude, and Vader. Often, even some of the better talent were placed in ludicrous gimmick scenarios that seriously handicapped their appeal. In its latter days. The promotion once again reverted to obscene levels of abhorrence, piling hilariously inept booking upon insane stipulations that drove fans away in their thousands.
Since its creation, TNA has produced many a turd for us to purge our innards of. Combining rancid burials of its younger, more interesting talent, and retarded gimmicks, Victory Road 2009 is the absolute pinnacle of this, with a platter of dull, repetitive undercard material, a lousy waste of its top talents, and one of the worst excuses for a wrestling bout that I’ve ever had the misfortune of witnessing (Tara vs. Jenna Morasca). I essentially gave up hope though for TNA following an even worse card they promoted a few months back. One so bad, this is what I said… “Destination X was a fucking pile of abandoned fucking dog nards”. Yes, that’s not a good thing. But let’s not even mention their risible brand of localised “entertainment” that they spurted forth back in their early days – weekly pieces of crusty toe-jam. Yuck.
I figured though, I’d choose a show that scraped the barrel of and emerged from the biggest company with the most resources, and least possible excuses for delivering so little. That’s right, the WWE.
There is no excuse for Vince McMahon’s group to ever deliver a show of the abysmal standard that was, say, the 2006 edition of Armageddon. Playing host to a scintillating ladder match, the remainder of the card was complete nards. They have more cash than anyone else, more experience, and a massive roster. Shows like that, which fans are asked to pay for, simply should not exist. For other examples, look no further than countless Brand-exclusive PPVs, largely from Smackdown that provoked almost unanimous misery. Looking back, this is how I’ve judged some of their worst efforts over the years…
Armageddon 2004
“Don’t ever watch this, and if you already have done, my deepest sympathies.”
WrestleMania I
“A much respected show, and obviously worth seeing, because of the scale of the entire enterprise, and the enormous historical importance behind it. But Jesus, the wrestling on this show is abysmal.”
Unforgiven 2007
“Unforgiven 07 didn’t rise from the toilet bowl that Summerslam was born into; instead it promptly nestled down beside it as the latest piece of crud that Vinnie is peddling as ‘wrestling’.”
WrestleMania XI
“Nothing to see here folks, move along.”
It’s perhaps fair to say though, that no PPV in recent times was as woeful as the 2006 stinker, December to Dismember- an appalling collection of garbage. Further back though, wasn’t necessarily happier times. Several ‘In Your House’ cards were appalling throughout 1995 and 1996, particularly any of those headlined by Sid or Diesel. King of the Ring 1995 was a catastrophic shart-heap, while even WrestleMania was tarnished by truly nauseating efforts in 1995 and 1997. Further back through time, The 1991 Survivor Series, and the first two WrestleMania’s, were utterly rancid beasts.
But my choice, one that may surprise some, is Armageddon 1999. Coming in the midst of a hot period for Stamford, this should have been an easy card to put together. But they somehow managed to cock it up royally. Famously, this show was headlined by Triple H versus Vince McMahon. Yup, months after briefly booking himself as the World Champion, Vince decreed that he was capable of pulling in the viewers and giving them a compelling main event. He wasn’t. The collision is remembered for the post-match angle that saw his daughter, Stephanie, turn on him and align with HHH. It was the beginning of a superb run for the duo. But the match itself was a tedious bore, bereft of crowd heat. Vince was half the performer in ‘99 that he was by the time he locked up with Hulk Hogan in 2003.
Even more devoid of crowd interest, was the bum-numbing World title bout between The Big Show, and The Big Boss Man. It was worse than you might imagine and an indication of horrible priorities.
Elsewhere, stuck going through the motions, The Rock was wasted in a tag effort, pairing him with an overweight Mick Foley against the past-it New Age Outlaws. Chris Jericho was in the midst of a feud with Chyna that was as good as you were ever likely to get with her. Meanwhile, we were treated to a terrible “super heavyweight” clash between The Holly’s, and Rikishi and Viscera. There’s a dream team. X-Pac’s useless storyline with Kane continued, in a rubbish Cage match that went only eight minutes, while Kurt Angle’s bout with Steve Blackman was an okay early entry for the Olympian, but hardly a show-saver. That other staple of crapness, the Battle Royal, was pulled out of the bag, while the best bout effort was arguably a triple threat between Val Venis, D’Lo Brown, and Davey Boy Smith. Yep, that’s D’Lo post-storylines and effort from creative, Val, six months too far entrenched in his gimmick, and Smith, deep in a tragic, and irreparable, self-inflicted haze of a condition.
Triple H was about to begin a white-hot run as the company’s top heel, The Rock was a massive babyface, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho had just joined the team, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero were about to, and The Undertaker was due to return. Yet somehow, this 170 minutes of rasslin’ was a complete quagmire of ineptitude. You know you’re in trouble when your event is most remembered for a Four Corners Evening Gown in a Pool match. Yup, that’s how crappy Armageddon 1999 was.
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