8 Wrestling Events That Pulled Inspiration From Strange Places

1. Cyber Sunday 2008 - The BlackBerry Phone

AEW South Park
WWE

The concept of WWE’s Taboo Tuesday and Cyber Sunday PPVs was a fascinating one that was overflowing with potential.

The plan for the show was to have fans vote in real time as to what they wanted to see – whether that was opponents, stipulations, or gimmicks – and WWE was driving this home as being a fully interactive PPV.

Problems arose for talent, as they wouldn’t have to work completely on the fly at times – Chris Jericho famously revealing how he had to ask Shelton Benjamin what his finishing move was as The Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah headed to the ring to face him – and then there were questions over the legitimacy of said fan voting.

In terms of inspiration for the look of the event itself, at first the stage was set up to replicate a desktop computer. That in itself was a little garish, but 2008 saw WWE bizarrely use a BlackBerry mobile phone as the inspiration for that year’s Cyber Sunday PPV.

You can kind of see that WWE was looking to push the idea that you could vote for matches on your phone, but by going so hard with BlackBerry it felt as if it was almost part of some advertising campaign for the mobile phone provider – which it was not.

Either way, somebody had seen a BlackBerry phone and thought “wouldn’t that make for a great stage setup for a wrestling PPV!”

No. No, it wouldn’t.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.