WWE's 5 Worst Concepts for Themed Pay-Per-View Events

In what has become somewhat of a phenomenon in the WWE as of late, many pay-per-views are now named after match types and are categorized as themed events. With Night of Champions quickly approaching, it seems appropriate to explore the good and the bad of themed pay-per-views.

Night of Champions is certainly one of the good ones. It focuses on every title being defended, which is an ideal that the WWE should always strive toward. Most titles are defended at most pay-per-views, but it is actually incredibly rare to see every championship contested in one night.

Other themed pay-per-views that seem to work are old standbys like Royal Rumble, as well as newer events such as Elimination Chamber and Extreme Rules. The Rumble is a classic, but Elimination Chamber and Extreme Rules are also good because they aren't severely limiting in terms of match types.

On the other side of the coin, there have been many poor themed pay-per-views as well. A lot of them have been discontinued, but there are a couple that remain on the annual calendar. Themed pay-per-views aren't always bad, but when they are, they are often disastrous.

Here are the five worst themed pay-per-view concepts that the WWE has ever come up with.

Fatal 4-Way

Fatal 4-Way is a WWE event that took place in Uniondale, N.Y. back in 2010. Not surprisingly, it hasn't been utilized since.

The concept of Fatal 4-Way was fairly simple, as it featured a number of Fatal Four-Way matches. Fatal Four-Ways in and of themselves are entertaining matches, but having three on one card is overkill.

The WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship and Divas Championship were all put up for grabs in Fatal Four-Way matches, and a new titleholder emerged each time.

The WWE really tried to push the notion that anything could happen in a Fatal Four-Way match, and while that was proven true, the gimmick simply didn't work.

I'm generally not a fan of the title of a pay-per-view limiting what can be done on the card, and Fatal 4-Way did that about as much as any event ever put forth by the company. Fatal Four-Ways should come about based on storylines and shouldn't just randomly be thrown together because the title dictates that they should be.

The event as a whole received negative reviews, as the Fatal Four-Way matches didn't really deliver anyway. So it's fair to say that Fatal 4-Way was one of the WWE's biggest failures in recent memory in terms of pay-per-views.

December to Dismember

The original December to Dismember was held in 1995 when Extreme Championship Wrestling was an independent company. But the WWE decided to bring it back in 2006. At that point, ECW was a brand of WWE, and the company was utilizing brand-specific pay-per-views, which meant that both Raw and SmackDown already had their own events.

December to Dismember was the first and only event of its kind for ECW as a part of WWE. It wasn't themed in that it was married to a particular match type, but the ECW theme severely limited what the writers could do in terms of talent use and championships defended.

There were only six matches on the card, and four of them were absolutely inconsequential. The tag-team opener between the Hardy Boyz and MNM was excellent, and the Extreme Elimination Chamber match for the ECW Championship to close the show was solid as well, but this is probably regarded as the least star-studded WWE pay-per-view of all time.

I understand what the WWE was trying to do in terms of getting ECW over as a brand, but it was ill-advised to make the event ECW only. Had the mid-card been filled with Raw and SmackDown, stars it may have been a success. But the WWE brass put all its eggs in an unstable basket.

Hell in a Cell

Hell in a Cell is one of the few themed pay-per-views that I dislike that has stood the test of time thus far. The first Hell in a Cell event was held in 2009, and it remains in the regular rotation, as it will take place in October this year.

The main concept is obvious: The main-event matches on the card are Hell in a Cell bouts, while the rest of the event contains bouts with normal stipulations.

I like Hell in a Cell matches as much as the next guy, but they shouldn't be the premise behind a pay-per-view. Hell in a Cell is supposed to be the most vicious and unforgiving match in the WWE, so it should only be used on special occasions, and those occasions should present themselves rather than being forced by the calendar.

Triple H and The Undertaker having a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania was perfect because they are probably the two most identifiable superstars with that particular match, and they were essentially ending a rivalry at WrestleMania. Hell in a Cell matches should be used to end feuds, and I don't feel like that is the case at Hell in a Cell.

Whoever is holding the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship at the time is put in a Hell in a Cell match against the No. 1 contender regardless of whether or not the angle calls for it. I can see why some people enjoy this event, but I absolutely hate how restricting it is.

Bragging Rights

I wouldn't say that Bragging Rights itself was particularly egregious, but when you consider the fact that Survivor Series was already on the pay-per-view slate, it was pretty stupid to have another event with a similar concept.

The main draw of Bragging Rights was that it was an inter-promotional night that featured a Raw team and SmackDown team battling for supremacy.

It was different from Survivor Series in a way, since Survivor Series has never been about Raw and SmackDown, but the team idea was same.

Survivor Series is a shell of its former self, as it now only features one old-school eight- or 10-man match per year, whereas that used to be the entire card. I would have rather seen the writers go back to that style with Survivor Series, which would have eliminated the need for Bragging Rights completely.

Also, now that the brand split has been phased out, it wouldn't make sense to have Bragging Rights, since you can't really tell which wrestler belongs to which brand. I'm not sure if the writers anticipated moving away from the brand split, but they got rid of Bragging Rights in the nick of time, as it hasn't taken place since 2010.

Even with Survivor Series in place, I could have stomached Bragging Rights had there been a point to it. But the winning general manager simply got a stupid trophy that meant nothing. There wasn't really any meaning behind Bragging Rights, and when you couple that with its similarity to Survivor Series, it was somewhat of a failure. 

TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs

TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs has been in place since 2009. While there are certainly worse themed pay-per-views, I'm not a fan of the premise.

TLC contains a mix of TLC, tables and ladder matches, as well as various other Extreme Rules matches. All of those are generally entertaining match types, but why have TLC when Extreme Rules is already its own pay-per-view.

The reason why I list TLC rather than Extreme Rules is that, essentially, any type of match can be put on the Extreme Rules card and it would still work with the theme. TLC limits itself, though, since a table, ladder or chair pretty much has to be involved. As I've said, I'm simply not a fan of that type of limitation when it comes to pay-per-views.

Ambiguous pay-per-view names such as Vengeance, Backlash, No Mercy and so many others are usually better in my mind, since literally anything and any match type can happen.

TLC has generally been an entertaining pay-per-view over the course of its existence, but I doubt it would be any less entertaining if the name was changed and the gimmick was eliminated.

TLC will take place this year, and it appears to be in the rotation for the foreseeable future. But I find it somewhat pointless to have both TLC and Extreme Rules at the same time when Extreme Rules is pretty much all-encompassing.

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