10 Wrestling Pay Per View Concepts That Didn't Catch On
4. WCW Battlebowl
Battlebowl was the bane of many a WCW fan’s existence in the early ‘90s.
Debuting at Starrcade 1991, it was a Lethal Lottery-esque system in which a handful of randomly-drawn tag teams competed for the right to fight in the actual Battlebowl (and over-the-top elimination battle royal) itself. Winners advanced, losers did not, and one man would stand victorious at the end of the evening.
The matches stunk and completely derailed Starrcade ‘91 and ‘92, but WCW weren’t dissuaded. They granted the gimmick its own self-titled pay-per-view in 1993, and while the show-closing battle royal was fun, the setup matches were dreadful. Few of the thrown-together teams had any chemistry whatsoever, and while the likes of Ric Flair and Cactus Jack tried their hardest to raise the bar, they couldn’t pull it off.
Vader won the event, but there was no tangible prize. He was WCW Champion at the time, and with no rewards announced prior to the event, the conclusion was flat and pointless. Having someone else eliminate Vader could have at least been used to set up an eventual title match, but no. WCW got nothing out of this event, and while the Battlebowl match was revisited against three years later, the PPV itself fell by the wayside.