10 Opening Wrestling PPV Matches Better Than The Main Event
The curtain jerkers who outperformed the main eventers.
The opening match of a pay-per-view sets the tone for the entire night, and a stinker of an introduction can sometimes make it difficult to get the crowd back into the action. On the other hand, a 5-star curtain-raiser sets the bar impossibly high for the rest of the performers, which can occasionally result in a pretty anti-climactic affair.
Obviously, that's not what the company wants. They position the matches a certain way because they believe it's a crescendo toward the "big payoff" for the audience. You don't expect the main event to be worse than the opener, nor do you ever really want that.
That would be like booking the Rolling Stones to go on before The Guess Who. That's not to say The Guess Who is incapable of outperforming Mick Jagger and company... but they're not why most people bought their tickets. Still, this occasionally happens on a wrestling show; The Guess Whos of the roster simply outshine the Jaggers for one reason or another.
The following openers aren't necessarily all 5-star matches, but they no doubt stole the thunder from the main event.
10. Billy Kidman Vs. Rey Mysterio Vs. Juventud Guerrera (Starrcade 1998)
Main Event: Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg
Here's a booking formula that often plagued WCW's later years: Open the show with your very best cruiserweights giving it their all, close it out with your most overpaid egomaniacs delivering a lukewarm pile of garbage. Repeat until someone is fired.
Despite the cruiserweight division being shoved to the background and left to its own devices -- or possibly because of that -- the high-flyers would frequently outshine the big stars. Starrcade '98 was no exception. Kidman, Mysterio, and Juvy put on a gravity-defying spectacle that, wonderfully enough, wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
No, this wasn't the highlight of anyone's career. But there was rarely a moment that somebody wasn't flying through the air to perform a jaw-dropping "how do they do that?" type of moment.
The main event between Nash and Goldberg, however, had more "why did they do that?" moments than anything else. Why did they try to stretch the match time beyond ten minutes -- overstuffing it with corner work and pseudo-submission maneuvers -- when both men excelled in short burst situations? Why did Eric Bischoff allow Nash to become head booker? Why did Nash use that newfound power to create such an ungodly misguided finish?
Sadly, the answers to those questions don't ease the pain of seeing Goldberg's streak end at the hands of a damn stun gun.