10 Best Matches From B-Level WWE Pay Per Views
B-Level, A-Grade.
As the recent Payback event confirmed, the weary glances some fans cast towards B-level pay-per-views are justified in their cynicism.
The WWF first introduced its progenitor, In Your House, to combat WCW's lurching market share on the pay-per-view landscape. As great and innovative as some of those events were, it was at the very beginning of the monthly model that fans were first conditioned to accept their nominal B-level status at face value. The WWF Championship traded hands just once under the In Your House banner, at Final Four.
Though greater importance was placed on the B-level events once the IYH branding was put out to stud, the likes of Backlash and No Mercy are still anticipated more as dark horses than frontrunners - likely because they betray their billing. As Payback attested, it wasn't an event on which TV storylines culminated. The finish to Seth Rollins Vs. Samoa Joe was an obvious and cheap way of prolonging the rivalry - an all too common non-Big 4 trope.
At best, they promise a gimmicked rematch to a gripping, if fading feud (Batista Vs. Triple H, Vengeance 2005). At worst, they are almost resented by the very company which presents them as inconsequential filler (see above). But somewhere in between, B-level PPVs*, often via daring experimentation, can offer something even greater than WrestleMania.
*King Of The Ring and Money In The Bank are exempt. Both were or are promoted with as much conviction, at least, as Survivor Series.
10. CM Punk Vs. Daniel Bryan - Over The Limit 2012
2011 was an abysmal year for WWE, and CM Punk wanted to symbolise and effect change. In the end, he was emblematic only of the company's turgid and muddled creative process. Daniel Bryan, meanwhile, was sacrificed to Sheamus at WrestleMania XXVIII.
Neither man was meant to become the Ace. To underscore that, their WWE Championship match at Over The Limit 2012 was positioned below doyen John Cena's comedy headliner opposite John Laurinaitis.
Whether or not that provided added incentive isn't clear, but they wrestled as if it did. Their match was a simmering technical festival notable for what didn't happen in it as much for what did. Punk, babyface, didn't play underdog. Bryan, heel, didn't beg off or use the referee as a shield. It was essentially a classic Ring of Honor match in a WWE ring, an ultra-stiff mat classic so indebted to the more realistic Indy scene that Super Dragon's innovated curb stomp was used in reverent tribute.
This match was superb, in and of itself, but it was all the better because it effectively atoned for the bullsh*t and chicanery flung at the feet of both men. They finally had a platform - nearly twenty five minutes, high stakes, the top prize - on which to demonstrate that WWE was in dire, dire need of change.
And they killed it.