Ranking 2017's WWE PPV Endings: From Worst To Best
Bliss & bewilderment in equal measure.
It's been a middling year for WWE pay-per-views.
The Royal Rumble and WrestleMania 33 were thrilling spectacles, and Great Balls Of Fire transcended the ridicule spawned from its inherently ridiculous name with a cluster of good-to-great bouts. Signature events like SummerSlam and Survivor Series were wildly uneven, though, and Battleground and Fastlane are both among the worst PPVs that WWE have delivered this decade, so deep were their problems.
WWE's inconsistencies were mirrored in the shows' endings, with many serving as perfect microcosms of the night's action as a whole. These moments should be the most memorable part of the broadcast. Sadly, this was often for all the wrong reasons in 2017, with the company closing many a major event on dismal, soul-destroying notes.
The highs were extremely high, though. The promotion's flaws are legion, but they still capture lightning in a bottle every now and then, and nothing beats the big theatre thrill of a major pay-per-view event closing on a gratifying visual. It's a shame we don't get such crowd-pleasing conclusions more often, but that's WWE for you.
Let's take a journey through every single PPV peak and valley.
16. Backlash: Reign In Crud
While far from the year's worst pay-per-view, May's Backlash ended on the sourest of sour notes, hitting a dismal nadir that no other show-closer could even come close to touching.
Why? Jinder bloody Mahal.
Jarring in the extreme, 'The Maharaja's' coronation was the worst kind of surprise. His push came completely out of nowhere, and while Randy Orton wasn't exactly having a vintage run as WWE Champion, replacing him with a career-long enhancement talent wasn't the right move. It was immediately apparent that WWE had made a huge, huge mistake. If you weren't reaching for your sickbag, Mahal's victory likely had you spewing bile on social media instead, and he'd go on to have one of the company's worst modern title runs.
It didn't help that the celebration followed a nothing match, either. Mahal vs. Orton was drab and lifeless, and ended through textbook WWE heel shenanigans, with The Singh Brothers lending their benefactor a hand. Regardless, this would've been infinitely more tolerable had the company not just made the year's most questionable booking decision.
Shock, disbelief, anger, revulsion: Backlash provoked each in equal measure. May we never speak of it again.