10 Bad WWE Pay-Per-Views One Tweak Away From Excellence

9. Royal Rumble 1995

Dick Murdoch Lex Luger Royal Rumble 1995
WWE

Why it's bad: The talent pool was shallow in 1995, with the company's annual battle royal highlighting the worst of the financial peril WWE found itself in during those lean years. A very good undercard was overshadowed by the short sharp shart of the "most fast-paced Royal Rumble in history"

One Tweak: Let the match go an hour, in spite of obvious limitations.

If anybody from the field had it in them to go 60 minutes (or thereabouts), it was eventual winner Shawn Michaels. The story with Davey Boy Smith and 'HBK' going end-to-end was tremendous, but there are several stars in the match that could have split the task to allow for a similar story told twice with his biggest rivals.

A card featuring high quality matches for all three titles wouldn't have been so forgotten had the Rumble also delivered as it so often did in the 1990s. In the modern era of shows going far too long, this tighter turnaround actually harmed the end result - desperately needed 30 more minutes.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say. With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.