7 Most Surprising WWE PPV Main Eventers Ever

7. JBL - Judgement Day 2004

John Bradshaw Layfield was a career midcarder before the absences of Kurt Angle (injury) and Brock Lesnar (quit to try out for the NFL) forced WWE to turn him heel and hastily shunt him up the Smackdown card. He ditched longtime tag partner Ron Simmons (who was also fired for real) and became 'JBL', a JR Ewing style millionaire.

His first main event programme was opposite WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero and, despite a poor, cheap heat-filled buildup, the two men headlined May's Judgement Day pay-per-view. The outing was pedestrian, meandering stuff in the early going (it was quite clear that the challenger had no stamina), but it seriously picked up at the midway point.

Clattered with a vicious chair shot to the head, Latino Heat bled a gusher. 'A gusher' is putting it mildly: Guerrero, the ring and the ringside area were soaked in the red stuff. It made for a far more dramatic match, as viewers genuinely felt like Eddie might not make it out of the match alive, let alone with his WWE Title.

A DQ finish necessitated a rematch at the next Smackdown PPV, the dire Great American Bash, but that match didn't headline (the Undertaker versus Dudley Boys 'Concrete Crypt' disaster did - more on that later). Of course, JBL would go on to headline many more pay-per-views over the following years (quite ably, too), but it was certainly a surprise to see him in the show-closer in May of 2004, after being so aimless for the months beforehand.