7 Most Infuriating Last Minute WWE PPV Changes
1. Hardcore Holly Replaces Sabu - December To Dismember 2006
Sabu was originally scheduled to take up the last slot of the one and only - that is literal, not an aggrandisement - Extreme Elimination Chamber match at December To Dismember - an event which was the least-purchased WWE-presented pay-per-view of the pre-Network era.
By late 2006, Vince McMahon had soured on the Homicidal, Suicidal, Genocidal Death-Defying Man. He was released the following year.
He was, in Vince's eyes, a liability - he was infamously busted for possession of cannabis alongside Rob Van Dam a few months earlier. He was also perceived as being unable to work a coherent match without the aid of chairs and tables, inexplicably considered a no-no in the retooled ECW, in which disqualifications and count-outs were commonplace.
He was also the fourth babyface in a match featuring just two heels, a violation of McMahon's in-ring psychology policy.
This replacement wasn't disheartening solely as a result of the personnel involved - Hardcore Holly equipped himself well in his new, Extreme surroundings - but because it crystallised Vince's vision of ECW at the expense of Paul Heyman's. It was the proverbial final nail.
Sabu needn't have felt too disheartened. His babyface peers CM Punk and Rob Van Dam were also handily sacrificed at the unpopular altar of McMahon pet project Bobby Lashley.