As NXT is bringing back Great American Bash for tonight and next week as part of an effort to offset AEW Dynamite having the special Fyter Fest subtitle. It’s a smart strategy, as any means to make NXT feel like it’s just as good of a show, if not better, will help them in the ratings war.
Plus, with it being around July 4th, it makes perfect sense to give that particular name to these shows, which is a rare instance of logic in an otherwise normally chaotic WWE landscape.
This got me thinking about other pay-per-view names WWE should bring back, and while I went down that rabbit hole, I started coming across plenty of the opposite. As a companion piece, I figured let’s run down the worst pay-per-view names that WWE has at its disposal that should never be considered to make their returns.
Page 1: WWE | Page 2: WCW | Page 3: ECW | Page 4: In Your House
WWE PPV Names
Let’s start off with WWE proper (by which I mean, ignoring WCW and ECW events WWE may own the trademark for, as well as In Your House subtitles).
When WWE announced Great Balls of Fire, I laughed, rolled my eyes and thought to myself “Good lord. I hope this doesn’t catch on and become a regular part of the calendar year.”
Great Balls of Fire is so incredibly old-timey and lame for 2019. If they had at least had an Inferno Match or something, it would have made sense. But nope. Instead, it was just something that must have come out of Vince McMahon’s book of slang that hasn’t been updated in decades.
I’m not the right person to talk about keeping up with modern lingo “the kids these days” are saying, as I’m twice their age, but even I know if I were to call a fight a donnybrook, they’d look at me confused like I came straight out of 1950.
Let’s never have another event called Smackville ever again, too. That was a horrendous waste of time as it was, and the name had zero effort put into it.
That reminds me of Live from Madison Square Garden. You might think “well, that doesn’t count” but it is the legitimate PPV name from that event. It’s not just WWE Event Name coming live from Madison Square Garden as a tagline. If it was history-making, just like we say something happened at WrestleMania 10, we’d have to say “Remember when that match happened at Live from Madison Square Garden?”
Rebellion = Bland as all hell. Next.
Fatal 4-Way = If you’re going to call an event after the name of a match, it should at least be something you don’t do all the time. It’s fine for a PPV to be Elimination Chamber or Hell in a Cell or Money in the Bank. Nobody wants to see WWE Tag Team Match as an event’s title, though, or WWE Handicap Match.
This Tuesday in Texas = What about Next Monday in Montana? Or Three Weeks From Wednesday in Wisconsin? You use the phrase “this Tuesday in Texas” to set up when an event is happening, not name the show. “This Tuesday, at the blah blah arena in some city in Texas, I’m going to win the WWE Championship!”
One Night Only = The trick with this is that you can only do it once. WWE ran into that problem with One Night Stand. Plus, that doesn’t sound like an engaging title, does it? It’s the equivalent to WWE Later Tonight at 7pm.
Insurrextion = Remember when X was the coolest letter? This is from the era of Xtreme with Xplosions and Xtraordinary people who loved neon green and whatnot. It wouldn’t work in 2020 without feeling too dated and like it was made by a dad trying to be hip.
Taboo Tuesday = It’s better to shy away from taboos these days. Plus, that never really signified “professional wrestling show”. Cyber Sunday made more sense for the same concept of fans being able to vote on the show and was a better title.
Let’s move on in page 2 with names from WCW that aren’t as good as Great American Bash.
