Why do fans say that the December to Dismember PPV was the worst ever?

[CM Steel]

Somebody call Comic Book Guy from the Simpson's.

In 2006 the WWE debut the ECW brand that would later be defunct. But that December of that year the WWE gave ECW it's own pay per-view, December to Dismember. The showcard had...

-The Hardys vs MNM
-Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney
-Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay vs The F.B.I.
-Daivari (with The Great Khali) vs Tommy Dreamer
-Kevin Thorn & Ariel vs Mike Knox & Kelly Kelly (with the Sandman coming out at the end of the match)

-The EXTREME Elimination Chamber match featuring: CM Punk, Rob Van Dam, Test (R.I.P.), Bobby Lashley, Hardcore Holly, and the Big Show who entered as the ECW champion. But Bobby Lashley walked out the chamber as the new ECW champion.

For some reason alot of WWE fans viewed the December to Dismember PPV as "the worst WWE PPV ever"! But why? I respectfully disagree with that statement. Because you have to remember the Great American Bash PPV in '04, with JBL of all people leaving the PPV as the WWE champion. And the showcard for that PPV was a hot mess! So I would have to argue that the DTD PPV couldn't have been the worst WWE PPV ever.

But in your own opinion, tell me different?

 

[relentless1]

because ECW sucked, the original version sucked and the WWE version really sucked. I've never really gotten the appeal of ECW and "hardcore" wrestling, i guess its the same redneck ******s that love jackass that love that junk. Uninspired gore porn. Paul E is such a great wrestling mind but I think he was just doing what he could to get his promotion by at the time and kudos to him for lasting so long but ECW was just bunk TV. Anyways, D2D had a lot of shitty matches. Thats why nobody likes that PPV.

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

It was an awful PPV. Rushed together and nobody cared about half the talent on the card. It was hugely unremarkable. Some aspects of the Original ECW were very good - the way that Paul Heyman booked wrestlers to highlight their strengths and hide their weaknesses was brilliant and it pushed talent in to the spotlight; a lot of whom went on to be massive stars in WCW (Jericho) and WWF (Mick Foley, RVD, Jericho again etc). But this PPV was substandard and I look at this time as when Vince started to give up on the WWE product. I believe it is the lowest PPV buy rate ever for a WWE event (certainly since 1997). It sucked. When I think of this PPV, I get the same feeling as all TNA events "pay for it? I would not watch this if it was free to air!"

 

[billmac]

December to Dismember is the worst because of the way it came off live. The only match that was actually booked prior to the event itself was the Elimination Chamber match, and the tag title match was booked the SmackDown before the PPV if memory serves correctly.

The people who tuned in to see it I guess where hoping for some wild ECW-esque show where anything could happen in the unannounced matches. Then instead the C-list wrestlers that had been putzing around on the show all had underwhelming singles matches. I still remember watching and waiting for something ECW to happen the entire night.

The main event came and I had the honest expectation that the main event was going to be worth the time and money alone. Instead, it was a slow flat match that was "extreme" in name only and didn't really bring much to the table, and felt like it only lasted 10 minutes in real time.

All I can remember from the PPV is being thoroughly disappointed again and again after a good opener for the tag belts. Then a vague memory of RVD and CM Punk having a really cool spot with a missed leg sweep and a big chair shot and Lashley with the obligatory big-show-through-the-glass spot.

If I went back to watch, maybe the matches are good. But the lack of pre-show booking and the underwhelming development spoiled it for everyone at the time. And I don't think anyone has since attempted to go back and investigate if it was better than they remember.

 

[Rusty]

I'll tell you why it sucked.

I believe it got one of the lowest buy rates ever because of many reasons. Out of those 6 or 7 matches on the card, only 2 were announced ahead of time. I vaguely recall viewing the card 6 days before the pay pay view, and the only matches announced were Hardy's v MNM and the Elimination Chamber. You do not announce 2 matches ahead of time and expect people to pay for the entire card, unless its Rock vs Cena or something to that extent. Below you will see why they didn't announce them ahead of time:


Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney
-Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay vs The F.B.I.
-Daivari (with The Great Khali) vs Tommy Dreamer
-Kevin Thorn & Ariel vs Mike Knox & Kelly Kelly (with the Sandman coming out at the end of the match)

Do I REALLY have to explain why this card was so bad, especially the undercard. The only superstar that got over with the company a year later was The Great Khali, and Kelly Kelly but even she flunked years later. None of them are superstars people pay to see. Combine them all together, and I wouldn't even watch that card for free on ECW.

Hardy's v MNM was a decent match from what I remember, but I believe there was little build up to that match also. And now for the finale:

-The EXTREME Elimination Chamber match featuring: CM Punk, Rob Van Dam, Test (R.I.P.), Bobby Lashley, Hardcore Holly, and the Big Show who entered as the ECW champion. But Bobby Lashley walked out the chamber as the new ECW champion.

Without question, the worst Elimination Chamber match of all time. Sure on paper it looks decent, but back in 2006... CM Punk was a nobody, a glorified ex-ROH wrestler who had yet to prove himself on the big stage. Sure he was on DX's Survivor Series team prior to that, but he was almost like an extra, making up the numbers. He was a mid-carder at best, lucky he was on ECW, he wouldn't have survived on the main rosters back then.

RVD was RVD. Not a guy people pay to see. Test, was freaking shit. Lashley was fairly unestablished at that point, though I guess this was the lead into his main run in the company. But even in his PRIME, nobody gave a crap about him. This was before his prime. Hardcore Holly is an undercard wrestler at best. And the Big Show was well.. slightly more relevant than what he is now, which isn't saying much.

It was a shambles of a pay per view, I watched it for free, but if I paid, I would have demanded my money back. Absolutely shocking. And the Great American Bash 04 had more star power than this.. for one, it had, you know, the WWE Championship on the line!

 

[Judah's Lion]

just to summarize what Rusty and others have already said so well:

1. it had one of the lowest, if not THE lowest, buyrates of all time.
2. only 2 matches were advertised before-hand.
3. there were very few stars on the card. and i'm using the term "stars" very generously.
4. the matches that DID happen, whether announced before-hand or not, under performed inside the ropes.

so yeah, without bashing or name-calling, and with all due respect to the men and women that were on the card and did their best, it was just not a show worth the money to pay to see it, and not even really worth watching again... for just $9.99!

 

[Pratham]

As it turned out, the people screaming E-C-Dub didn't really care about paying 30 odd dollars to buy the PPV. I'm not surprised. The original ECW was horrible. The 60 minute match between Funk, Sabu and Douglas which is said to be an epic, was terrible. Jim Ross said it best while talking about ECW, "If you hit a guy with a baseball bat in the head six times, and he doesn't die, you're a pussy."

 

[Reflection]

I feel they stabbed themselves on the foot with this one. I still cannot understand why they did not advertise and hype this show on RAW and Smackdown like they do for all other PPV's? Because at the end of the day, only the name is ECW; the money will come to Vince's own pockets.

Apart from the points the others have mentioned, another thing we have to consider in this regard, is that this PPV took place in 2006. We were still in the Ruthless Aggression Era, and looking back at the past 8 years or so, wrestling was at its best. So DtD getting the tag of "Worst PPV ever" wasn't too surprising. The PG Era would go on to present us with much worse PPV's, shows that totally fell flat but were not given that tag because they sold better.

December to Dismember- Worst PPV till 2006? Maybe, I don't know. Worst PPV I ever watched? Definitely not.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

It *could* have been better. Taken individually, it wasn't a bad show, but it didn't really have that ppv 'feel' to it.

The Elimination Chamber I don't recall being *that* bad but Test shouldn't have been in it, Sabu should. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I know that Van Dam didn't do himself any favours with his pot arrest in the Summer, but in an ideal world, he would still be ECW champ leading into this, and Tommy Dreamer would be in the Chamber in place of the Big Show, who had no place as ECW champion. So the main event should have been RVD (c) v CM Punk v Dreamer v Sabu v Hardcore Holly v Lashley, and Lashley could still come out as champion (or Punk, who Heyman wanted)

But the other reason it is remembered badly is that Heyman didn't book it, and WWE pushed the wrong wrestlers in 'new' ECW, at least at the start. They had a prime opportunity to exploit a 'new breed v originals' storyline, kinda like the 2001 WWE invasion storyline, culminating at an Extreme Rules match at Wrestlemania (same match they had but with ER - another balls up by the booking team), which is why Punk, Holly and Lashley would all fit in the EC against the old guard trio. They could have had an old v new theme running through the show, easy to continue through the following month's Royal Rumble, to finish at WM23. But very little thought, it seemed, went into the card.

A shame. A big missed opportunity for WWE

 

[Aquaman6686]

For some reason alot of WWE fans viewed the December to Dismember PPV as "the worst WWE PPV ever"! But why? I respectfully disagree with that statement. Because you have to remember the Great American Bash PPV in '04, with JBL of all people leaving the PPV as the WWE champion. And the showcard for that PPV was a hot mess! So I would have to argue that the DTD PPV couldn't have been the worst WWE PPV ever.

I had no problem with The Great American Bash 2004. JBL leaving as WWE Champion was fine with me, I'm a huge Eddie fan but I also supported the idea of Bradshaw being a top singles star for years and years, and was ecstatic to see him win a World Championship on a PPV. The show also had a fantastic United States Championship match, and the only real terrible match on the card was the Concrete Crypt Match, which would have been fine in the midcard but was an unworthy main event.

December to Dismember was FAR worse in my opinion, because they took no time to build the show and it was what, a week after Survivor Series? WWE's PPV schedule at the time doomed the show before it started. Luckily though, the PPV bombing so horribly convinced WWE to revamp their PPV schedule and the entire ECW brand, which from mid-2007 to its end in 2010 became one of the most enjoyable WWE products.

 

[RKOrob]

The Elimination Chamber I don't recall being *that* bad but Test shouldn't have been in it, Sabu should. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I know that Van Dam didn't do himself any favours with his pot arrest in the Summer, but in an ideal world, he would still be ECW champ leading into this, and Tommy Dreamer would be in the Chamber in place of the Big Show, who had no place as ECW champion. So the main event should have been RVD (c) v CM Punk v Dreamer v Sabu v Hardcore Holly v Lashley, and Lashley could still come out as champion (or Punk, who Heyman wanted)

Sabu was originally advertised to be in the chamber match. I remember the one thing I was excited for was some sick Sabu spots in the chamber (seeing as hardly any of the rest of the card was advertised). He was inexplicably replaced by Hardcore Holly (who had been nowhere near the ECW title at that point) on the day with no notice or reason which pissed a lot of people off

 

[Headman]

Somebody call Comic Book Guy from the Simpson's.

In 2006 the WWE debut the ECW brand that would later be defunct. But that December of that year the WWE gave ECW it's own pay per-view, December to Dismember. The showcard had...

-The Hardys vs MNM
-Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney
-Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay vs The F.B.I.
-Daivari (with The Great Khali) vs Tommy Dreamer
-Kevin Thorn & Ariel vs Mike Knox & Kelly Kelly (with the Sandman coming out at the end of the match)

-The EXTREME Elimination Chamber match featuring: CM Punk, Rob Van Dam, Test (R.I.P.), Bobby Lashley, Hardcore Holly, and the Big Show who entered as the ECW champion. But Bobby Lashley walked out the chamber as the new ECW champion.

For some reason alot of WWE fans viewed the December to Dismember PPV as "the worst WWE PPV ever"! But why? I respectfully disagree with that statement. Because you have to remember the Great American Bash PPV in '04, with JBL of all people leaving the PPV as the WWE champion. And the showcard for that PPV was a hot mess! So I would have to argue that the DTD PPV couldn't have been the worst WWE PPV ever.

But in your own opinion, tell me different?

Because other than the Hardy's vs MNM there wasn't a single stand out match on the card. Which is why it was one of only two matches advertised in advance. It was a horrible, HORRIBLE ppv. With that said the Voodoo Kin Mafia (New Age Outlaws) challenged the WWE to add them to that match which was absolutely silly, but could you imagine if the WWE had taken them up on that offer? That may have upped the buy rates from squat to squat and a half.

 

[Stingersplash89]

It didnt help that ALL of the real ecw guys (iirc) lost their matches and that # 2 biggest ecw name in Sabu was left off the card despite being shown in the arena. If this wasn't the worst ppv of all time it was easily the top 5 along side KOTR '95 among others.

 

[justtxyank]

As it turned out, the people screaming E-C-Dub didn't really care about paying 30 odd dollars to buy the PPV. I'm not surprised. The original ECW was horrible. The 60 minute match between Funk, Sabu and Douglas which is said to be an epic, was terrible. Jim Ross said it best while talking about ECW, "If you hit a guy with a baseball bat in the head six times, and he doesn't die, you're a pussy."

I haven't seen that quote before but it is awesome. In wcw 2000 Nash was feuding with funk and in the buildup Nash hit funk in the side of the head with a bat like three times in a row. It was terrible.

One, it's hard to swing a bat at someone's head without hurting them and it look real and two, how can you possibly sell the idea that a bat to the side of the head doesn't put someone out for real?

When sting used the bag he never put it at people's heads. It was a way to even the odds when he was outnumbered, but he gut shot people with it, leg shot and some back shots.

 

[Messiah]

It's the worst PPV because it's the lowest bought PPV in WWE history. The entertainment value sucked, most of the roster was garbage. The only thing remotely entertaining about this show was the Elimination Chamber match and maybe MNM vs. The Hardy's.. GAB 04 wasn't a bad show, they had good matches on the show, unlike December 2 Dismember.


If you asked Vince what the worst PPV ever would be, he would probably say December 2 Dismember as well.. There was a reason WWE didn't do anymore ECW PPV's after that disaster.

 

[d_henderson1810]

I never saw the PPV but I may have a look at it when I get WWE Network.... for $9.99.

This way, I am not blowing my money on it, as there is plenty of other stuff worth watching, so I don't have to feel I paid for that rubbish PPV on its own.