10 Best WWE Raw Brand Pay-Per-Views Ever

by John Bills

1. Vengeance 2005

Kurt Angle Shawn Michaels Vengeance 2005
WWE

Timing can make a lot of difference for WWE pay-per-views. Backlash 2017 was undeniably hurt by the Superstar Shake-Up, which rendered a number of matches entirely toothless. Vengeance 2005 also took place in the middle of draft season, but this had the complete opposite impact. The draft meant that this show was packed with star quality from top to bottom, a rarity in mid-2000s WWE.

Any show featuring Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels is on to a winner too, and the two all-time greats put on another clinic prior to the main event matches. Angle and Michaels had once-in-a-lifetime chemistry, and this match was as good as anything else in WWE in 2005.

The semi-main event saw John Cena defend his WWE Championship against Chris Jericho and Christian, the two Canadians going all out to make the new champ look like a million bucks. They succeeded too, putting together a smart triple threat match that benefited from the talent and personality of Christian and Jericho.

Batista and Triple H ended their rivalry in the main event, the perfect climax to a feud that made Batista a star. The mistakes WWE made in breaking Orton away from Evolution were rectified here, and WWE came out of this show with two new faces at the top of the company.

Vengeance 2005 may well be the best brand-exclusive pay-per-view in WWE history. A show featuring Lesnar vs. Strowman, Reigns vs. Cena, and Ambrose/Rollins vs. Cesaro/Sheamus has a good chance at usurping it however. Roll on 24 September .

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.