Ranking Every 2019 WWE PPV From Worst To Best
The Best In The World At What They Do (...most of the time)
A quick set of caveats before we get to the meat of what used to be WWE's main revenue stream, and - confusingly - is still booked as such. Television are currently where the billions can be found, but it hasn't (yet) changed the company's approach to the big monthly special.
"Pay-per-view" in this context at least, will exclude:
- Abbreviated Network-only specials. Your (sigh) Starrcades and your (hard sigh) Shield's Final Chapters and your (hardest f*cking sigh of the year) SmackVille were house shows with cameras rolling for small portions and can't be fairly graded amongst the usuals.
- Anything NXT, discounting their Survivor Series involvement. In TakeOver, NXT has established the most consistent and beloved regular brand of anything in North American wrestling, to the point where even August's deeply disappointing Toronto edition would still breeze past over half of WWE's annual offering. The similarly well-recieved NXT UK TakeOvers also won't feature here.
- Saudi Arab-nah, just kidding. WWE, in spite of what might appear to be better judgement, deeply embed these events within the fabric of their regular weekly and monthly offerings. They're getting judged like every other show, and predictably, one of them is the only place to start this year's particular list...
14. Super ShowDown
The Good: 'Money' in name and nature, Shane McMahon remains the clown prince of these f*cking things. His victory (!) over Roman Reigns set up their feud decider a few months later, and though he dominated too much of their 9:15 encounter, he brought a certain charm when working at his most cowardly.
The Bad: A 51-man Battle Royal was another gift to local hero Mansoor but sucked otherwise. Randy Orton and Triple H insultingly went 25 minutes when that wasn't even welcome a decade ago, whilst Finn Bálor's least effective Demon match with Andrade served as a genuine disappointment considering what could have been.
The Ugly: Eeesh, the ugliest, perhaps. The poster of Undertaker's match with Goldberg reeked of the Saudi wealth that drew them there before the real thing stunk up the joint even worse. A concussed and exhausted Goldberg and a stressed and sweating 'Deadman' botched their big moves, including Tombstones and Jackhammers so dangerous-looking it was as though they were receipts for one another. Undertaker took home all the tragic awards in 2018 for the moment he couldn't summon the breath to move the hair from his face during a Saudi superclash with D-Generation X. This catastrophe represented his real rock bottom.