WWE King of the Ring: Why the Annual Tournament Should Be Brought Back as a PPV

Oh, I just can’t wait to be king.

That’s a saying that was made famous by a cartoon lion named Simba, but one that was also once uttered by some of the WWE’s top superstars who strived to be king—well, the King of the Ring, that is.

From 1985 to 2002, the WWE’s King of the Ring tournament was held once per year (excluding 1990 and 1992), and from 1993 to 2002, it even took place on pay-per-view.

The format of the tournament was simple: Win your match, and you advance. Win all your matches, and you become king.

It was one of the most popular staples of pro wrestling for nearly the first two decades of its existence. However, the WWE discontinued the KOTR of as an annual tournament in 2003, and it didn’t return until 2006, when it became a SmackDown-exclusive tournament.

The only match from the 2006 King of the Ring tournament that aired on pay-per-view was the final match, which featured Bobby Lashley taking on eventual champion Booker T at Judgment Day.

After that tournament, the KOTR would go on another hiatus, returning again in 2008 (won by William Regal in a one-night tournament on Raw) and last taking place in 2010 (won by Sheamus, also on a special edition of Raw). 

Unfortunately for fans of King of the Ring, though, we haven’t seen the tournament since Sheamus won it in 2010, and there are virtually no signs that it’s going to return anytime soon. 

But it should. And if/when it does, it should return as a pay-per-view. 

Here’s why.

The Fall of the WWE Pay-Per-View 

Outside of WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble, there are virtually no pay-per-views that are consistent, money-making draws. 

SummerSlam and Survivor Series are supposed to round out the “Big Four” PPVs, but the main concept of Survivor Series (the five-on-five matches) has lost a lot of its luster and turned Survivor Series into basically just another PPV. Meanwhile, SummerSlam—while awesome last year—hasn’t exactly been the summer blockbuster that it’s made out to be. 

Looking even deeper into the WWE’s pay-per-view schedule, we have shows like No Way Out, Night of Champions, Hell in a Cell and TLC, none of which have proven to generate particularly high buy rates, either. 

So, what does this all mean? Well, that the WWE needs something to stop the fall of the WWE PPV. 

That something could indeed be King of the Ring, which has a ton of name value and features a tournament concept that is rarely used outside of Beat the Clock challenges these days. 

KOTR could help the WWE’s struggling PPV schedule get a much-needed lift and, if booked correctly, could perhaps even replace Survivor Series or SummerSlam as a “Big Four” pay-per-view.

The Need for a Third Elevator 

The WWE has two of what I like to call “elevators,” which are basically avenues that are used to elevate mid-card or upper mid-carder talent to the main event. 

The WWE’s current two elevators are Money in the Bank and the Royal Rumble. 

Those are both all fine and dandy, but WWE needs a third one. And that third one should be the King of the Ring. 

Money in the Bank and the Royal Rumble are both fantastic concepts that give the WWE creative team an easy way to push an up-and-coming talent, as we’ve seen happen three times just over the last year (Alberto Del Rio and Daniel Bryan winning MITB and Sheamus winning the RR). 

At least to an extent, both MITB and RR did their jobs in that they helped three guys rise to a higher level than where they were at prior to winning that match. 

Throw King of the Ring into the mix as well, and the WWE would have three different types of avenues to push a deserving young superstar to the highest point of his career. 

The WWE could separate those three throughout the year so that they don’t cross paths and so that creative would have a few built-in opportunities to elevate someone up the card. 

This sounds like a win-win situation for a creative team that seems to have so much trouble elevating talent when it has to create its own ways to do so. 

A Cure for the WWE’s Summer Blues 

Generally speaking, the period shortly after WrestleMania is the worst time of the year for the WWE. 

The first post-Mania PPV (now Extreme Rules) is typically pretty good because it often features multiple WrestleMania rematches, but after that, all of the WrestleMania hype dies down and the WWE product really struggles. 

As a result, the months of May, June and sometimes even July can be pretty brutal for the WWE. 

The combination of the post-Mania slump, families vacationing during the summer and a genuine lack of interest in the WWE product makes the WWE product itself struggle mightily. 

The only way the WWE can really fix that is to have some sort of major event during that period that will force wrestling fans to tune in and will keep them talking. 

That major event could very well be King of the Ring. 

Let’s say, for instance, that the KOTR PPV is the next PPV after Extreme Rules. You could start with 32 or 16 competitors on TV and then dwindle that number down to eight before the actual pay-per-view takes places. 

The KOTR matches on Raw and/or SmackDown would give viewers a reason to tune in to those shows, and after following the tournament for several weeks, they’d want to tune in to the pay-per-view to see the last eight wrestlers compete in the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals of the tournament. 

Now, just think about how little interest there was heading into Over the Limit last month—replace it with King of the Ring and then think how much more interest there would be in the WWE’s May per-per-view if it actually had a selling point like KOTR does. 

There’s a reason for fans to care about who wins King of the Ring, especially if it guarantees a big push and World Title shot down the road. 

At the very least, it’s much better than watching John Cena vs. John Laurinaitis in one of the worst PPV main events ever.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him onTwitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions on Formspring.