World Titles at Big PPV's

[IrishCanadian25]

Here's a little study I just conducted in my office while asking myself the question - are World Title retentions at a promotion's major annual PPV anti-climactic?

Let's examine each:

World Wrestling Entertainment - Wrestlemania

1986 - Hogan retains vs Bundy
1987 - Hogan retains vs Andre
1988 - Savage wins tournament
1989 - Hogan wins title from Savage
1990 - Warrior wins title from Hogan
1991 - Hogan wins title from Slaughter
1992 - Savage wins title from Flair
1993 - Yokozuna wins title from Hart, Hogan wins title from Yokozuna
1994 - Hart wins title from Yokozuna
1995 - Diesel retains vs Michaels
1996 - Michaels wins title from Hart
1997 - Undertaker wins title from Sid
1998 - Austin wins title from Michaels
1999 - Austin wins title from The Rock
2000 - HHH retains vs Foley, Show, Rock
2001 - Austin wins title from The Rock
2002 - Triple H wins title from Jericho
2003 - Lesnar wins title from Angle
2004 - Benoit wins title vs Triple H and Michaels
2005 - Batista wins title from Triple H
2006 - Cena retains vs Triple H (Rey won WHC earlier)
2007 - Cena retains vs Michaels (Taker won WHC earlier)
2008 - Undertaker wins title from Edge

Total Nonstop Action - Bound for Glory

2005 - Rhino wins title from Jeff Jarrett
2006 - Sting wins title from Jeff Jarrett
2007 - Sting wins title from Kurt Angle
2008 - Sting wins title from Samoa Joe

World Championship Wrestling - Starcade

1983 - Flair beat Race for the title
1984 - Flair retains vs Rhodes
1985 - Rhodes beat Flair for the title
1986 - Flair and Koloff - double DQ
1987 - Flair beat Garvin for the title
1988 - Flair retains vs Luger
1989 - No Title Matches Occured
1990 - Sting retains vs The Black Scorpion
1991 - No Title Matches Occured
1992 - Simmons retains vs Williams
1993 - Flair beat Vader to win the title
1994 - Hogan retains vs The Butcher
1995 - Flair beat Savage to win the title
1996 - Non Title Main Event
1997 - Sting beat Hogan to win the title
1998 - Nash beat Goldberg to win the title
1999 - Hart retains vs Goldberg
2000 - Steiner retains vs Vicious

Ok, IC25, what does this exhaustive list mean?

In main events for a promotion's major Heavyweight Championship (main event denotes the final match of the night involving a World Title), a new champion was crowned 66% of the time. This does not take into account the 3 Starcades in which a title match did not occur. If you do not count Starcade, the WWF/E and TNA Title has changed hands 77% of the time. This counts Wrestlemania 9 as only ONE title change.

With all of the kayfabe build-up to a promotion's major PPV event, a title change almost feels like a "gimme." The Royal Rumble has almost become WWF's may of saying "you're going to win the belt at Wrestlemania, it's just a question of how." Both of Cena's title retentions, though final match main events, were against non-Rumble winners, and in BOTH cases, WWE's other championship had changed hands earlier in the night, which would drive the title change percentage up above 80%, or 4 out of 5 events.

What I am saying is that a major PPV that does not crown a new champion at the end is anti-climactic. Do you agree with me?

 

[klunderbunker]

Side note: damn at Sting's record at BFG. I know he's the biggest star but I never realized that.

I think so yes. I can only remember one instance where that's not the case and that's WM 3. WWE ran the idea in the 90s in In Your Houses where the champion would face lower level talent after only a month long challenge. I'm referring to such people as The Patriot, Goldust, the British Bulldog in his later run, etc. These matches were designed for the champion to retain and look decent and it worked just fine for one reason: it wasn't built as a major show. The big shows like BFG, Starrcade and WM are meant to be both a new beginning and an end at the same time. To have the champion come in and win the match just makes it feel like any other show. Matches like that are supposed to be the ultimate challenge not just another win for the champ. People always talk about winning the title on the grandest stage of them all. That's why it's special: your whole year has built up to this one moment. Let that moment be big. People remember title changes, not titles being retained.

 

[Shocky]

Klunder, you need to go post in the Sting's Bound For Glory/Starrcade Record vs. The Undertaker's Wrestlemania Streak in Old School. It's a gem, that didn't get off teh groudn, which is a shame because there is a ton of room for debate.

I don't think it's anti-climactic at all. Look, it maybe a gimme, but then again, it may not be a gimme. 77%
*(i'll use the largest number) is a pretty impressive number, but what happens when you watch on a night when you are apart of the 23%. Also, Wrestlemania is the biggest show of the year for a reason, and title matches go last for a reason. For some reason, people love title changes, and they want to say that they remember watching so and so beat so and so for the title at the biggest stage of them alll. It's no different then going to a movie that is the ending of a trilogy. For the most part, you know the end result. Eventually the good guy is going to win in the long run, but you want to see hwat happenes on the road to the destination.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

It definitely leans towards anti-climactic. When I watch WrestleMania, I'm expecting a title change, and its usually a breath of fresh air due to the previous 3 or more months of pounding a particular champion into my head. For instance, last year, after Cena's Royal Rumble win, I was expecting him to go on to have a true rematch against Orton at WM24 and win the title back from the guy who kayfabe put him out on injury. But then they ruined it 20 minutes into the first post-RR Raw by making it a No Way Out match and then ensuring that HHH would be in it. Then Orton retains by pinning the guy who won the rumble, just so he can drop it at Backlash to HHH like a chump. It really was anticlimactic with that. WWE makes this huge surprise that shocks EVERYBODY with Cena returning, winning the Royal Rumble, and it ends up fizzling down into a lackluster DQ No Way Out match, an odd Mania retain, and dropping it at Backlash.

But that's not to say that the very idea of retaining makes it anticlimactic. It depends on what storylines they're going with and whether or not it really makes sense to crown a new champion. Most of the time, yeah, they should have a title change, and nearly all the time, that should be a face winning the title. Sure, its a card that's been played a million times and people can see it coming a mile away, but the fans still eat it up. Undertaker/Edge last year was fantastic. I was watching it with a group of roughly 10 people, some of which aren't even big wrestling fans, and we were all glued to the TV. Since the match itself was great, the suspense was great, and everybody was happy and excited when Undertaker won it, despite how we all in the back of our minds knew Edge wouldn't retain.

What also helped that is that there was a storyline going on between the two. If WWE were building up Undertaker/Edge for months and months and months, and then suddenly, Batista had won that Elimination Chamber and defeated Edge at Mania, it would've seemed anticlimactic because there wasn't a true, solid finish to that feud that was going on. It was just thrown out the window. The same is what I'm fearing will happen with this year. I'm really hoping that we don't just get HHH against Edge because the WWE should be riding on the Hardy/Edge horse as its white hot right now, rather than just ending it and throwing HHH into there for the hell of it. One month of "Vickie keeps screwing HHH" isn't going to be a proper build towards a WrestleMania title change. If HHH does in fact have a match with Edge and wins the title, the entire ppv will be downgraded in my opinion, because the end of the ppv oftentimes overshadows the rest of it, so if you give me something anticlimactic, I'm going to walk away thinking "that was it? THAT was WrestleMania XXV...the biggest ppv in the company's history? They wanted me to pay that much money for THAT?"

It really all depends, but in general, the best thing for WrestleMania is to end it with a face who is over with the crowd (not in a Cena way) to win a major title.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

No I dont agree with you. In fact, I argue that a NEW champ being crowned is anti climatic. I mean, you said yourself, the Rumble win has all but become a giant neon sighn above the winner that says "I AM WINNING THE TITLE AT MANIA"...how can that be seen as intriguing, or climatic?? In fact, im a huge fan of the recent trend of people retaining at Mania. it gives it the REAL big match feel, and that anyone could win. In pretty much every WM in the past, the result of the ME was extremely predictable, and the precentages shows this. A champ retaining, by percentages, is more of a shock than a new champ, which inhernetly causes a title change to be predictable, and anti climatic. Which was a better, more shocking end to WM, Cena retaining against Triple H, or Batista beating Triple H???

 

[Richard]

While I think it's a good idea to have a major title change at a big PPV, I think that it should be used sparingly, as Norcal said, whoever wins the Royal Rumble, majority of the time held a massive sign above their head saying they will win at WrestleMania and that's almost as predictable as having The Undertaker have a match at WrestleMania, until recently with Cena retaining against Triple H, Shawn Michaels and then Randy Orton retaining against Cena and Triple H.

I think that this year, there'll be a new WWE Champion, as it has been retained three years in a row, I have a feeling there will be a new WWE Champion, but I'm not 100% sure which is what the WWE should have been doing and that's making us doubt the Royal Rumble winner's chances at 'Mania.

So basically, a world title change at big PPV's can be good, but not all the time.

 

[Khalifa]

I some-what feel that Big PPV's should always have a title change. It doesn't matter if it's the Tag team titles or IC or even the WWE title i feel that there should be a title change. So as the results show the company feels that the title should be changed at the "big one". This can be good at times and it might not be good at times. Lets look at some good times.

Benoit wins title at WM20. This was good for 3 reasons. First it brang a new face to Raw which Raw needed and this also it let HHH loose his title and not regain it for about 2 days( just joking ...6 months i believe). It made Raw look better by freshing up some new feuds and giving HHH a break from the title . Another reason is Chris benoit was a hard dedicated wrestler and was just a matter of time that he won the world title. Mania was great for it It also showed how much emotion was in Chris Benoit when he won it. This was a great time to change the title.

Nash wins title from Goldberg. This was another good time to change the belt. Goldberg had a 173-0 streak coming in and just had a boring reign altogether if you ask me. After Nash came and won WW3 it jsut seemed like this was the right time. There weren't many more heels for Goldberg and Nash being face at the time was probably at his prime. Giving the title to Nash the way they did just seemed the right thing to do. It brang Nash to become heel again and brang new feuds to the title. ( the way he gave it up as just stupid).

Now lets look at some bad ones.

Triple H defeats Jericho at WM 19. I have one question . Why do this? Jericho was having a great reign as champ. By defeating the Rock and Stone Cold at RR and NWO. The one with the Rock was a great match IMO. the one with Stone Cold was ok i guess but thats not what I am saying. I am saying that he had great matches and was putting on some ok promo's at it. Sure the return of HHH was big , sure he won the Rumble but having Chris Jericho retain would have made him not look like a complete fluke champion and add some more crediblity to that title instead of swapping it every month.

Taker defeats Edge at Mania 24. See the reason above. Again what was the point. Edge could of been the first one to defeat Taker at Mania and he is probably the right guy to do it. Sure Taker will be undefeated at WM for the rest of his career but Efge could of added himself higher in the rankings and he could of had the long reign every one wanted him to have.

Anyways a title change at teh "big one" could be good but could also be bad.

 

[agentmichaelscarn]

Personally I dont think it is, what I do find anti climatic is if a heel walks out with the strap. Cause there is no better way to close the biggest show of the year than to have the face celebrating in the ring with the pyro going off and the crowd going crazy. Whether it was to retain or not it still puts a ribbon on the show. Now after looking at that list only twice did a Mania end with a heel winning(Austin in WMX7 since he turned heel during the match, and HHH at WM2000) because Im sure WWE finds that anticlimatic and unsatisfying to the viewer which is why you rarely see it.

 

[Yrrab]

I'm gonna go with Scottie. As long as the match was good, I don't really care... Unless I'm watching my favorite guy or something. Edge versus Taker @ Mania 24 is my prime example. I was totally pulling for edge the whole time. I knew it wasn't gonna happen, but I was pushing for it. When he hit the second spear, I could have sworn it was over. Then Taker locked in the gate and made him tap. While the match didn't end in my favor, that was an amazing way to end a great match.

If WWE keeps having these triple threat matches for one of their damn belts, then IMO it's anti-climatic for the title to swap hands. I'd much rather see one hell of a fight with the defending champ retain than the title change hands as everyone expects it to. See Orton, WM24.