Remember pay-per-views? Those monthly wrestling events that you purchased before you got your subscription to the WWE Network? Whilst WWE has probably done the right thing by switching to a streaming/subscription service, PPV used to be a big earner for the company. That was before PPV buy-rates began severely decreasing in number and WWE hit the Network-shaped panic button. One of the criticism levelled against WWE these days is that they're stuck on autopilot because they know that, with the Network, people have essentially pre-paid for the next monthly spectacular. Back when the company relied on the PPV model to make money they actually had to try and convince punters to part with their hard-earned cash every single month for a series of fresh matches or big rematches. The success or failure of an event would be judged based on how many buys it did and the number of buys it did were attributed to the strength of the main event, usually. So WWE had a very real incentive to give their public a main event worth paying for. 2000 to 2010 boasts many epic, even classic PPV main event matches that people continue to champion. But during that time there were also some pretty awesome matches that have fallen under the radar. Do yourself a favour: fire up the WWE Network and remind yourself of these criminally underrated PPV main events from the 2000s.
