Ranking What Was REALLY The Best Wrestling PPV Every Year 1990-2020

Realistically, a promoter only needs one major match to sell a pay-per-view to the casual audience. Nobody bought WrestleMania XXVIII to watch Daniel Bryan Vs. Sheamus, which is why those bell-ends spent so long trying to ignore the obvious.

The very best pay-per-views, however, are holistic successes that appeal to the discerning pro wrestling fan of wide-ranging tastes. They are long shows broadcast on a school night that, provided they aren't shown on the WWE Network, cost a f*cking packet.

The least a promoter can do is not lump any old sh*te on the undercard, especially if that description is almost literally true of many of the immobile units that comprised early Attitude Era PPVs.

And that's what was key to selection here; as WWE has discovered to its profound cost in its recent history, patterned, stylistically homogenised matches, matches you're already bored of, aren't it. Historically, range is the most valuable supporting player underneath a top guy. Pro wrestling, the longest fictional show on telly, is a monumental investment of time, which is something that isn't cited enough when its decline in popularity is analysed.

Which promotions made best and most interesting use of it to sell what was once its lifeblood?

WCW promoted pay-per-views with superior in-ring action in 1990, but call it nostalgia - and you should, because without that stinging, inescapable feeling, the main event is just two rancid ar*eholes doing tests of strength - WrestleMania VI was the best because it was monumental.

Too many of the matches were too short to mean or develop into anything, but the inner child is still delighted by the procession of beloved, outsize heroes doing what made you love them in short, welcome bursts. Match quality was high-end, even electric in places: Jake Roberts and Ted DiBiase told a wonderfully basic but absorbing story, and the Rockers were on peak (and outrageous, given they were hungover as f*ck) form in a mini-banger opposite the Orient Express.

That main event, watched through the lens of said child and not the disgusted adult, remains a very canny tale of symmetry-as-unpredictable-drama perfect for its innovative and politicised all-babyface dynamic.

It was a massive occasion, too - easy, all these years later, to get lost in when you don't much fancy looking at the absolute state of Roddy Piper.