10 Wrestling Pay Per View Concepts That Didn't Catch On
7. WWE Capitol Punishment
As far as PPV concepts go, Capitol Punishment was as flimsy as it gets. The pantomime worlds of wrestling and politics have continually come together over the past few decades, but basing a whole PPV on political humour was a terrible mistake. Taking place in Washington, DC in June 2011, the show was peppered with horrendous comedy segments featuring an unconvincing Barack Obama impersonator, culminating in him doing Spinaroonies with Booker T.
The show itself wasn’t particularly exciting, though there were a handful of good matches in CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio, Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston, and Randy Orton vs. Christian. WWE even did a great job with their Washington-themed set design, but let’s be honest: a PPV headlined by John Cena vs. R-Truth was never going to set the world on fire.
WWE decided against following-up on Capitol Punishment, and with Linda McMahon currently serving on Donald Trump’s cabinet, we definitely won’t be seeing another show like this in the next four to eight years. Few fans had anything positive to say about the political skits at the time, and re-watching them in 2017 only amplifies their stupidity.
The whole event reeked of an excuse for the Republican-leaning McMahon family to poke fun at the Democrat president, and the concept was needless.