I'm torn between the two sides on this one. On one hand I think having damn near every PPV center around a gimmick match breeds lazy booking and takes all-important time away from the actual feuds and stories being told. On the other hand those gimmicky PPVs sometimes turn out to be the WWE's best events of the year... Let's take a look at 2011's full PPV schedule:
Royal Rumble: The original WWE gimmick PPV. I don't hear anybody arguing that they should do away with the Rumble, and why should they? This wasn't the BEST event of the year, but it did feature some great matches and a Rumble match with some cool spots and fun entrants.
Elimination Chamber: Likely the best gimmick-themed PPV of the year. 2010's event saw two phenominal Chamber matches and a nostalgic moment for Jerry Lawler, as he took on the Miz for the WWE Championship in a surprisingly solid match.
WrestleMania XXVII: A few words come to mind when I think about Mania 27... Underwhelming. Boring. Terrible pacing. Unable to live up to any of the hype and expectations that they put forth. I loved Rhodes/Mysterio, Orton/Punk, and of course the No Holds Barred (a gimmick match) between Triple H and Undertaker, but that's it. The good those matches produced was destroyed by Michael Cole and the way they set up the card. So our first non-gimmick based PPV of 2011, the biggest show of all no less, and it sucked.
Extreme Rules: A night filled from head to toe with gimmick matches. Steel cages, ladder matches, falls count anywhere, you name it! And guess what... It was one of my favorite events of the year! Christian and Alberto del Rio tore the house down and delivered a truly special moment coming off the heels of Edge's retirement. Cena/Miz/Morrison delivered inside the Steel Cage. Orton and Punk stole the show in a lot of people's eyes. Mysterio and Cody Rhodes, once again, produced. And to top it all off, even the Divas entertained, putting on one of the best women's matches I've seen in years and ushering in the debut of Kharma at the same time.
Over the Limit: Randy Orton and Christian's excellent match was literally the only saving grace of this PPV. Cena/Miz was alright...pretty much nothing outside the usual, expected Cena title defense. The rest of the card was pretty terrible, and the Sin Cara vs Chavo Guerrero match that was supposed to bring the house down ended up being lackluster at best. It wasn't a total disaster of a night, but definitely not a check in the "thumbs up" category for non-gimmick PPVs.
Capitol Punishment: This had a politically themed gimmick, but the matches themselves didn't really have any sort of theme. Some good matches with Punk/Mysterio, Orton/Christian II, and Ziggler/Kingston for the US title. I'd give non-gimmick PPVs their first check in the positive column, but only just. It wasn't THAT great of an event, but most definitely the best for non-gimmick events thus far.
Money in the Bank: A gimmick PPV that was hands-down the best PPV of the year. This is sort of the exception though, because there can only be two gimmick matches based off the concept, forcing the writers and wrestlers to come up with good material for the rest of the show. If we had to keep any one gimmick event, this would be my pick for sure.
SummerSlam: The two title match main events were solid, but ADR cashing in on Punk left a really bad taste in my mouth. The rest of the card...meh. Not a gimmick PPV, but one that has been around for a very long time.
Night of Champions: Head to toe this one was full of great wrestling matches. I would really upset by Cena winning the WWE title IMMEDIATELY after ADR had won it at SummerSlam, but I have to admit I really loved this event. There are a lot of mixed reactions with NoC 2011, but I'm putting in the plus column.
Hell in a Cell: Not a great event, but not a terrible one either. Another title switch, but this time with a phenomenal ending. The match card was solid, it's only real fault was that not much of consequence actually happened, save for the end.
Vengeance: This was the only non-gimmick match that I thought did an excellent job. I had some issues with the booking decisions made, but I can't fault the actual card nor the wrestling action that took place. Solid event.
Survivor Series: Gimmick PPV. Decent PPV, but not great. The crowd was awesome, it just failed to live up the all the expectations. This is more a fault of creative and booking though...
TLC: Awesome. Awesome awesome awesome.
So let's take a look at how 2010 worked out, obviously from my opinion... MITB, Chamber, TLC, Extreme Rules were the four best PPVs of the year and they were all definitely gimmick events. There was one or two mediocre gimmick-based events, but none of them really fell totally flat. Compare that to only one really solid non-gimmick PPV and bunch of, all things considered, failures. I'd say the gimmicks have the win in 2011...
I agree that sometimes creative can focus too much on the gimmick and miss out on the story when it comes to these kind of shows, but there's really no definitive proof to back that up. The stories being told going into TLC and MITB were all fantastic, as were WrestleMania and a few other events that just fell flat. I think the blame is distributed pretty evenly if you look at it. The question is: would events like TLC, MITB, or the Chamber have been such huge successes WITHOUT the extreme gimmicks in place?
Ideally I would keep the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank, and TLC. They are all consistently great events that I don't want to see disappear from the WWE calendar. I wouldn't mind doing away with Hell in a Cell, Night of Champions, and Survivor Series. The problem is, even thought they weren't that amazing, they were still head-to-toe, better events than most of the non-gimmick-based PPVs.
