10 Best Wrestling PPV Matches (That Actually Were On Free TV)
In hindsight, maybe giving away Goldberg versus Hogan on Nitro wasn't the best idea.
Wrestling feuds can be intense sometimes, borne from personal animosity so deep and all-consuming that the score can only be settled with the aid of foreign objects or a 12-foot steel cage. However stark their differences, though, the wrestlers are generally prepared to respect one essential rule: you wait until the pay-per-view.
On weekly television shows - the allotted advertising space for PPV events since they were made the industry norm with the creation of Monday Night Raw in 1993 - you have to make do with fighting other wrestlers who perhaps aren't the one you really want to get your hands on, but at least share with him a few character traits.
Best case scenario: you find yourself on opposing teams in a tag match.
This isn't always the way, though, and sometimes free TV is not only the breeding ground for new feuds, but the place where existing ones reach their climax; the place where big matches - not just big promos - find their audience. Don't believe us?
Here are 10 pay-per-view matches that aired on free TV.
10. Triple H Vs. Kane (Raw, 2003)
If they were going to kill Kane's career, couldn't they at least have had the decency to charge viewers a nominal fee?
Triple H's 2003 World Heavyweight Championship defence against the Big Red Machine probably had neither the quality nor length to grace a major show, but the high stakes - it was stipulated that Kane would have to unmask and reveal his (basically quite normal) face to the world if he lost - surely made it deserving of the headline spot at one of Raw's threadbare PPV cards at the time.
Instead, Kane bared his unremarkable mug on a June episode of Monday Night Raw, in what you have to admit was one of the show's all-time memorable moments - even if, with the benefit of hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea WWE have ever had.