How many WWE PPV's would you do per year?

[ASKane]

Across different threads and reports I have seen complaints for both TNA's 4 PPV's a year and WWE's 12 a year. So I would like to know what your opinion is on how many and why. You can also add which ones you would do. I would do 8, this gives an average of 6 weeks to build up between each PPV and should allow WWE to have more title defences on Raw/SD/Main Event. This would be my PPV calendar and the dates from 2014 when I would hold them. I will format it as Day/Month
12/01 - Royal Rumble
02/03 - Elimination Chamber
20/04 - Wrestlemania
01/06 - Extreme Rules
13/07 - Summerslam
31/08 - Money In The Bank
19/10 - King Of The Ring
01/12 - Night Of Champions

 

[faltemer]

I agree, 8 or 9 would probably be a better overall product, although they would lose money doing so. At this point I don't see any reason for Night of Champions most titles are either challenged for at every PPV, or almost never at all regardless of the name. I would say move Extreme rules to the 2nd slot, I don't like having elimination chamber right before Mania.

12/01 - Royal Rumble
02/03 – Extreme Rules
20/04 - Wrestlemania
01/06 - Money In The Bank
13/07 - Summerslam
31/08 – Elimination Chamber
19/10 – Survivor Series
01/12 - King Of The Ring

That would be ideal for me, maybe adding one PPV in the month of September and moving the August PPV back a few weeks to make it 9 PPVs in the year.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The problem is you would need something to fill in the intervening months and RAW's aren't really gonna do it. If they had Saturday Night Main Event like they did back in the day, then that would work to fill in those 3 shows a year.

The reason for going 12 monthly originally was to keep pace with WCW and to get new talent over quicker than they could do with the traditional 5 shows a year. There is something to be said for reducing the PPV shows now as they're not using them effectively anyway - when Mania matches are made 1 week before or non finishes are becoming a regular fixture it becomes a harder sell to get 12 x $60 a year out of people as there is a chance their fave (Ziggler for example last night) won't even be on the show in favor of Khali.

If I was revamping the schedule I would say first of SD goes live and 3 hours - same as RAW. The majority of talent appears on those 2 shows. From there you remove PPV's in December and Night of Champions. December becomes the official "off season" where there is no PPV and things build to the Rumble.

I would be pushing hard to get SNME back onto network TV to take up that slack - an Xmas show and one in July that hosts King Of The Ring. Don't make KOTR a PPV, but have it live on network with the top names involved - no more using it as a Money in the Bank/Rumble push substitute but the top 8 guys in the company facing off for maximum ratings.

MITB would go, the match is better served at Mania, as would Hell in a Cell - last night proved the concept is dead in PG.

They can be replaced with older WCW concepts like War Games, Great American Bash or Battlebowl - the "random tag team" PPV would be an interesting concept to help re-invigorate tags in general.

but the key thing is the approach to booking the PPV's themselves... if you have a title - you're on them, even if it's a shorter match. The remainder of TV which would be now 6 hours a week before NXT comes into play would be more than sufficient to build all the stories you need. but you make sure EVERY match on the PPV's has build of 3 weeks and you make sure EVERYONE on the roster is feuding with someone... that's how the Hogan era worked and it's whats sorely missing. Random thrown together matches ruin the PPV, how many people saw Khali appear last night and though "really? Ziggler got bumped for this?".

WWE won't make these changes though cos ultimately PPV is a cash cow, but they have perhaps now damaged the public trust with it's booking of non finishes and not paying off the Bryan win. Right now no one has any faith he will ever win it (unless they do it tonight, which proves they're panicked).

 

[King Patrick Star]

Revisiting this Professional Sports Wrestling Entertainment gem, today, I say I would stick with 12 Pay Per Views a year. I’d go with the last Sunday of the month.

January – Royal Rumble

February – Superbrawl
Elimination Chamber Title matches still here in February.

March – WrestleMania
The Money in the Bank match should go back to WM.

April – King of the Ring
Yes!! Bring it back in PPV format!! This is the only PPV where only the World Titles are defended, because of the 3 rounds / 7 matches Tournament.

May – Night Of Champions
Personal favorite of mine.

June – Bash at the Beach
Same as others, but at an outdoor / beach setting.

July – The Great American Bash
World War 3??

August – Summerslam

September – Survivor Series
Four 4 on 4 Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series Style matches, and a Raw Champions vs. Smackdown Champions match Main Event.

October – Halloween Havoc
WarGames.

November – November to Remember
Replaces Extreme Rules but uses its concept.

December – Starrcade
Battlebowl / Lethal Lottery.

 

[JJ15776]

This is what I would do(2014 dates in month/date format)

01/26 Royal Rumble
02/23 No Way Out(Elimination Chamber)
04/06 WrestleMania
05/11 Backlash
06/08 Extreme Rules
07/06 Great American Bash/Money In The Bank
08/17 SummerSlam
09/14 Night of Champions
10/12 Cyber Sunday?
11/16 Survivor Series
12/14 Armageddon

I guess that's 11 PPVs a year. I put that schedule together without a set number in mind, the idea was just to have 4 weeks before the ordinary PPVs (I added another week before Backlash because I think an extra week post-WrestleMania is fine, and without that extra week the rest of the PPVs are too early and there's too much time left at the end of the year) and 5 or 6 weeks before the major ones.

But there's one VERY important thing that needs to be brought up when comparing the schedules of TNA and WWE. TNA has one TV show a week while WWE has two. More specifically, TNA has two hours of TV a week while WWE has five. That means under their current respective formats, TNA averages 26 hours of TV between PPVs while WWE averages 22 hours of TV between PPVs. So the difference isn't nearly as big as 4 vs 12 sounds. (Hell, if you include Main Event, WWE averages 26 hours of TV between PPV, exactly the same as TNA) They're both doing basically the same thing, just getting there different ways.

 

[Dagger Dias]

They could do fine with just 11 per year. Without even addressing older former PPV brands like King of the Ring or any of the WCW shows returning, here is how I would set it up using today's PPV events.

January - Royal Rumble
February - Elimination Chamber
March/April - Wrestlemania
May - Payback
June - Over the Limit
July - Money In the Bank
August - Summerslam
September - Night of Champions
October - Hell In a Cell
November - Survivor Series
December - TLC

Extreme Rules is useless, I have stated this multiple times, so that brand being removed would be the first change I make. The second would be ONE show in October, Hell In a Cell. Over the Limit would come back and feature matches such as Last Man Standing, I Quit matches, or even an Iron Man match. Payback would return and become the Wrestlemania rematch show that Backlash used to be and that they have tried turning Extreme Rules into. As for the rest of the year, the PPV lineup is fine how it is. We get a show each month other than Wrestlemania which gets all of March for build up before the show itself in April.

 

[JoVilla21]

11 PPVs is fine with me, they just need to stretch the dates out so the card doesn't feel "rush." This is what I'd do:

January - Royal Rumble - Last Sunday in Jan
February - Elimination Chamber - 3rd Sunday in Feb
April - Wrestlemania - first Sunday in April
May - Extreme Rules - mid May
June - KOTR - winner gets a shot at whichever title in the main event of Summerslam
July - MITB - Mid July
August - SummerSlam - Last Sunday in Aug. Lon build for a Big PPV
September - Night of Champion - Last Sunday in Sept - All title matches must be built.
October - Hell in a Cell - End of the main fueds - Mid October
November - Survivor Series - Last Sunday in Nov - Well built 5 on 5 match
December - TLC - 3rd Sunday in Dec

 

[The Eighties]

The first thing I'd do is get rid of the two in October and now that Mania is regularly eating up March and April I'd stick with 11, maybe even knock it down to 10 as I am not sure a December PPV is needed.

The other thing I'd do is get rid of the Hell in a Cell PPV, that is a gimmick match that should be saved for very special feuds, not something that is slated for each calendar year and sees a cold match like Punk vs Ryback put in it like in 2012.

January - The Royal Rumble
February - Elimination Chamber
March/April - WrestleMania
May - Backlash
June - King of The Ring (Winner gets a title shot at Summerslam)
July - Money in The Bank
August - Summerslam
September - Night of Champions
October - Halloween Havoc or Fully Loaded
November - Survivor Series
December - TLC

 

[StonewallBrigade]

10 at the most. 9 would be better. 12 is definitely too much. Especially when there is 2 in 1 month.

 

[ceasar330]

they are not going to have less ppvs, they make to much money on them

wwe raw and wcw smackdown

j...royal rumble (50 man rr match)
f...starrcade (ec style match)
m...clash of the champions (all titles and rr and ec winners vs world champs)
a...wrestlemania (wwe vs wcw)
m...king of the ring (kotr to get new world champ of show who lost at wm)
j...slamboree
j...superbrawl (30 man battle royal where last 2 wrestlers have a match)
a...summerslam
s...battle bowl (tag team matches to see whose in the battle royal)
o...fallbrawl
n...survivor series (ss matches and a war games match)
d...goldrush (tna king of the mountain match)

 

[Honkey_Kong]

Although they'd never reduce the number of PPVs (unless they started drawing TNA numbers), they should go back down to 5 ppvs:

Jan - Rumble

March - Mania

June - King of The Ring

August - Summerslam

November - Survivor Series*

What the problem has been since they started doing the monthly PPVs was that there is no build to the PPVs. You want to slowly build your feuds up, in fact they should be intertwined with smaller feuds that run in the interim (to keep the major feuds from becoming stale). And every week BUILDS to the payoff PPV.

To fill in the gap between PPVs, you use TV specials like Clash of The Champions and SNME. These could be used to finish distracting feuds and to build the PPV feuds up.

KOTR should not be about feuds, it should be a pure wrestling card.

Survivor Series should have a plan where their survivor series matches (or maybe wargames style matches) are built up from the end of Summerslam onward. Alliances should be made between teams and wrestlers so that the matches on the card MAKE SENSE. What they shouldn't do is put together a team of faces and heels whom only have the fact that they're bad guys or good guys be what unites them. It really never makes sense when they do this, it's just bad booking.

 

[Aquaman6686]

I'd stick with 12 PPVs, and go back to when the Brand Extension existed and they had brand-exclusive PPVs. Brand-exclusive PPVs allowed for more young stars to get exposure and made for a much more enjoyable product, since both shows weren't scrambling to do a PPV every month.

January - Royal Rumble
February - No Way Out (SmackDown)
March/Early April - WrestleMania
April - Backlash (RAW)
May - Judgment Day (SmackDown)
June - Vengeance (RAW)
July - The Great American Bash (SmackDown)
August - SummerSlam
September - Unforgiven (RAW)
October - No Mercy (SmackDown)
November - Survivor Series
December - Armageddon (RAW)

 

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

This is predicated off of WWE getting a lucrative deal with a network (NBC) or using their own network (if it ever comes). In my scenario there would be 8 ppv's a year. We would have the big 4 and than 4 others. There would be three different levels of payment where WrestleMania would be the most expensive, Rumble/SummerSlam/Survivor Series all the same price but lower than WrestleMania, and the other 4 ppv's the same price but lower than Rumble/SummerSlam/Survivor Series. Then on either NBC or WWE Network their would be 3 Saturday Night Main Events which would be very similar to the other 4 ppv's. Using 2014 as an example, here is how the year would look.

01/26 Royal Rumble (always between Championship Games and Super Bowl)
03/01 Saturday Night Main Event (Between Rumble and Mania)
04/06 WrestleMania (Always on the 1st Sunday in April)
05/11 Starrcade (1st of 4 lower tier ppv's)
06/15 King of the Ring (2nd of 4 lower tier ppv's)
07/19 Saturday Night Main Event (Between KOTR and SummerSlam)
08/31 SummerSlam (Always on last Sunday in August)
09/28 Night Of Champions (3rd of 4 lower tier ppv's)
10/26 Halloween Havoc (Last of lower tier ppv's)
11/30 Survivor Series (Last Sunday in November)
12/20 Saturday Night Main Event (Saturday before Christmans)

 

[LODemolition]

In a perfect world, this would be my PPV calendar.

late Jan - Royal Rumble
early April - WrestleMania
mid June - King of the Ring (winner gets title shot at SummerSlam)
late August - SummerSlam
early November - Survivor Series

I'd have 3 Saturday Night's Main Events every year with themes:

1st would be 2-3 weeks before WM (have your MITB match here so there'll be speculation about a cash-in)

2nd would be 2-3 weeks before SummerSlam (call this one Clash of Champions/Night of Champions, put every title on the line)

3rd would be 2-3 weeks before Survivor Series (late October, have a Halloween Havoc type theme)

 

[5 Moves of Doom]

I believe they need to have about 9-10 PPVs a year. Having 2 PPVs a month is just too much. I also think every title needs to be defended at every PPV and not just a some of them. That would make titles more meaningful.

January - Royal Rumble
February - Elimination Chamber
April - WrestleMania
May - Backlash
June - No Mercy
July - Money in the Bank
August - SummerSlam
October - King of the Ring
November - Survivor Series
December - Armageddon

 

[MCMG]

11 PPV's is the right number in my opinion. One in every month except March to allow a greater build for Mania. I like EC, Extreme Rules, MITB, Hell in a Cell and TLC as gimmicks. All usually guarantee great matches and it is clear they are much better than, say a "Battleground" or "Payback". I would also bring back King of the Ring but I think most are in agreement about that.

January - Royal Rumble
February - Elimination Chamber
April - Wrestlemania
May - Extreme Rules
June - Night of Champions
July - MITB
August - Summerslam
September- King of the Ring
October- Hell in a Cell
November - Survivor Series
December - TLC

Nothing overly dramatic and there is still enough PPV's for the WWE to make money. To be honest, I think they could get rid of a PPV after Extreme Rules, bring MITB forward and have a longer build to Summerslam.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

I'd stick with 12 PPVs, and go back to when the Brand Extension existed and they had brand-exclusive PPVs. Brand-exclusive PPVs allowed for more young stars to get exposure and made for a much more enjoyable product, since both shows weren't scrambling to do a PPV every month.

January - Royal Rumble
February - No Way Out (SmackDown)
March/Early April - WrestleMania
April - Backlash (RAW)
May - Judgment Day (SmackDown)
June - Vengeance (RAW)
July - The Great American Bash (SmackDown)
August - SummerSlam
September - Unforgiven (RAW)
October - No Mercy (SmackDown)
November - Survivor Series
December - Armageddon (RAW)

The reason why they stopped doing that was because their flagship show was Raw. So their best stars (generally) were on Raw. That being said their PPV buys on Smackdown brand PPVs was too low to be worth doing.

It still doesn't address the problem that the PPVs have become anti-climatic and more like just another episode of Raw or Smackdown. Which is fine, except I'm not paying money for that. And that's really is the major problem. You need to give us a real reason to buy the PPV. It needs to be the climax to the feuds and too often it's just not.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I agree, 8 or 9 would probably be a better overall product, although they would lose money doing so.

Whether they'd wind up losing money is the big unknown. If they did only 6 PPVs, they would have twice as much time between events to build them up, advancing storylines at a slower pace to build anticipation. Whether they'd be able to attract more viewers over the course of the year is the big question, obviously. But if it worked, they'd cut production costs in half, while actually bringing in as much (or more) money than before.

I'd keep the big four PPVs and add in two more......call 'em wild card PPVs....and change up the random two annually. Every year, choose a different wild card theme with a different name; keeping the potential buyers guessing as to what's coming next. Also, don't have them in the same two months every year; one year, have them in March and September....the next year, do 'em in February and October.

Is going to 6 PPVs a gamble? Hell, yeah......and I'm glad it's not my money being risked. But 12 per year has always seem too many for me; I think it would be good to keep the audience guessing, rather than being complacent.

Another way of putting it: yes, there is a segment of wrestling fans who buy every PPV offered. But how many actually constitute this segment? If there are enough to keep WWE PPVs profitable, then by all means, keep it at 12. Otherwise, they might find they can generate more business by offering fewer shows.

Do I think WWE will ever consider this? Shit, no. But this is the topic we're being asked to comment on in this thread.

 

[Max_Power]

Late January: Royal Rumble
Royal Rumble Match

Mid-Late February: No Way Out
Mainevent/s involving Steel Cage or Elimination Chamber Match/s

Late March/Early April: WrestleMania
WrestleMania

Late April: Extreme Rules
Same as current concept

Late May/Early June: Backlash
No specific gimmick - mainevent possibly Last Man Standing/3 stages of hell or something similar

Late June/Early July: King of the Ring
SF's and Final on the night to determine #1 contender for WWE title at Summerslam

Mid August: SummerSlam
Same as now

Mid/Late September: Night of Champions
Same as current concept

Mid October: Unforgiven
Same as Backlash

Mid November: Survivor Series
Mainevent match involving some 'survivor' theme (Hell in a Cell/Last Man Standing etc) also at least one 5-on-5 Tag Team Match

Mid December: TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs
Same as current concept

 

[TJ Matics]

01/26 (January) - Royal Rumble
*30 Man Rumble, winner gets title shot at Mania. Groundbreaking, I know.

02/23 (February) - Cyber Sunday
"Extreme Rules" stipulations for fans to choose from.

03/29 (March) - Saturday Nights Main Event
*WM Teasers.

04/06 (April) - Wrestlemania
*Money in the Bank - 1 Winner.

05/11 (May) - Backlash
*WM Wrap-Up.

06/15 (June) - Elimination Chamber
*I think this PPV is/can be bigger than the last stop on the road to WM.

07/21 (July) - King of the Ring
*3 hour Raw special, in a world where Raw is only 2 hours.

08/17 (August) - SummerSlam

09/21 (September) - Great American Bash

10/20 (October) - Night Of Champions
*3 hour Raw special, in a world where Raw is only 2 hours.

11/16 (November ) - Survivor Series
*Winner of Smackdown v. Raw Match gets "Bragging Rights".

12/14 (December) - No Mercy

 

[tripleddd]

Not only would I reduce the PPV's to 10 I would change the running order of them as well. having 10 ppv's this would allow a build up of between of between 5-6 weeks for most storylines and on occasions allow a reasonable extension on some.
1. King of the Ring (winner goes on to next PPV with a title shot)
2. Royal Rumble
3. Wrestlemania
4. backlash (replay of wrestlemania matches )
5. No way out (including elimimation chamber)
6. Summerslam
7.Cyber Sunday (great concept good fun as well at least we are lead to believe we choose the matches )
8. armaggedon (including hell in a cell)
9. Survivor series (going back to original format 5 vs 5 tag team main event
10 Night of champions (finishing the year potentially with new or old champs and going into a brand new year)

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Whether they'd wind up losing money is the big unknown. If they did only 6 PPVs, they would have twice as much time between events to build them up, advancing storylines at a slower pace to build anticipation. Whether they'd be able to attract more viewers over the course of the year is the big question, obviously. But if it worked, they'd cut production costs in half, while actually bringing in as much (or more) money than before.

I'd keep the big four PPVs and add in two more......call 'em wild card PPVs....and change up the random two annually. Every year, choose a different wild card theme with a different name; keeping the potential buyers guessing as to what's coming next. Also, don't have them in the same two months every year; one year, have them in March and September....the next year, do 'em in February and October.

Is going to 6 PPVs a gamble? Hell, yeah......and I'm glad it's not my money being risked. But 12 per year has always seem too many for me; I think it would be good to keep the audience guessing, rather than being complacent.

Another way of putting it: yes, there is a segment of wrestling fans who buy every PPV offered. But how many actually constitute this segment? If there are enough to keep WWE PPVs profitable, then by all means, keep it at 12. Otherwise, they might find they can generate more business by offering fewer shows.

Do I think WWE will ever consider this? Shit, no. But this is the topic we're being asked to comment on in this thread.

Bit too TNA-ish to have random concepts.

The key to all this is getting back onto NBC or similar - with the current product and revenues, there is no reason other than timing that they can't bring back SNME. For it to work it goes up against or bumps SNL and even that isn't so crazy a notion these days with the numbers WWE COULD pull for it.

So as someone said your MITB, Night Of Champions and King Of The Ring are on SNME - and those months taken out the PPV equation. The E isn't gonna lose because there will be ad revenue worth more than the PPV buys. Sponsorship of the show would bring in more and the network would pay top dollar and use influence to get stars onto these shows. Rock's latest flick premiering after SNME? Could be a draw.

The fan doesn't lose out, in fact they "gain" because it's $200+ bucks a year out of what they pay now. It won't be streamed as it'll be free to air.

From there maybe cut one or two more of the weaker PPV's and put them on the new Network as exclusives to help launch it.

Whatever hit in buys they lose in the short term would be made up pretty quickly by the ratings.