8 Times WWE Recycled Show Names

That sounds familiar...

SUPER SHOWDOWNS
WWE

It's not easy coming up with original, good names for wrestling shows, if some of the absolute travesties WWE have concocted in recent times are anything to go by. Too sanitised for the typically grungey fare which characterised the Attitude Era - think the likes of Fully Loaded and Unforgiven - and many degrees too dull for anything self-aware or vaguely witty, they've instead come up with corkers like Stomping Ground or the mesmerically bad Great Balls of Fire.

So perhaps it's not a surprise that they've seemingly simply given up trying. This past week, the company announced that their next depressing venture to the Middle East will take the guise 'Super Showdown' - just over six months after a similar one-off special of Last of the Summer Wine in Melbourne.

In this case, it might be WWE's attempt to create a separate continuity for their money-making non-sequiturs. But it's not the first time they've repeated a designation already in circulation - either their own or someone else's - and in some scenarios, it's happened with the same year.

(Obviously, this doesn't extent to perennials such as WrestleMania and SummerSlam, unless they are peculiarly recontextualised for another purpose. That hasn't happened with either of the above examples just yet, though surely we're only a few months removed from a Greatest WrestleMania...)

8. St. Valentine's Day Massacre

SUPER SHOWDOWNS
WWE

Historians will be quick to point out that the 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre' moniker used by WWE for Steve Austin's buy-rate busting cage match against Vince McMahon in 1999 was obviously named for the infamous slaughter of seven members of Chicago's North Side Gang on the eponymous date in 1929 - but it wasn't the first time a wrestling promotion had used the name.

Ten years earlier, WCW's Clash of the Champions V took place a day removed from the annual lovefest with the exact same subtitle. The show, headlined by The Road Warriors and Genichiro Tenryu against The Varsity Club, was a warm-up on the road to brilliant Chi-Town Rumble pay-per-view five days later - which was more appropriately held in Chicago.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.