Hey everybody, how you doin’? Don here, and I’d like to kick back, relax, and discuss the building blocks of the modern day WWE pay-per-view. When we purchase a pay-per-view, or stream a pay-per-view on the WWE Network, what do we look forward to seeing? What should a WWE pay-per-view look like, foundation wise? Well, let’s dig into it a little bit.
So, why mention WWE Night of Champions? Well to be honest, I believe the overall concept of this pay-per-view is the best overall presentation of the WWE product. Almost every modern day WWE pay-per-view has a central theme, or gimmick. So what is Night of Champions’ central theme? Way back when, in June of 2007, WWE rebranded the Vengeance pay-per-view as Vengeance: Night of Champions. On this night, WWE promoted the fact that every active WWE championship would be defended on that night. Now, almost a decade later, WWE has now soley promoted the pay-per-view as Night of Champions. The overall central theme remains the same, but over time things have slightly changed. It wasn’t until 2010, six years ago, that WWE booked a non-title match on the pay-per-view. The Big Show defeated CM Punk. Yep. He sure did. Anyways, ever since the 2010 incarnation of Night of Champions, there have been roughly one to three non title matches on the pay-per-view itself.
What bothers me is the promotion for the pay-per-view itself. Why would you specifically promote a pay-per-view that has all active championship matches along with regular matches? That’s breaking the theme of the pay-per-view. Isn’t that just every other pay-per-view of the year? So why can’t every pay-per-view be presented in the way Night of Champions is? Now while some may say, what’s your point here? My point is that since WWE makes sure to promote every championship along with regular matches on Night of Champions, why not begin giving the same promotion to every pay-per-view? When the time rolls around for a pay-per-view such as Summer Slam, or Survivor Series, or even WrestleMania, the specific promotion for “every title is on the line” is seemingly dropped. I for one would like to see the promo package for a pay-per-view and be told, “Don’t miss this event this Sunday night! See every championship on the line! See so and so versus so and so” etc, instead of waiting until around mid September to explain to me why I shouldn’t miss every title match. Make the championships a central theme in every pay-per-view. Sprinkle in some grudge matches, gimmick matches, and title matches, and you should have your pay-per-view promotion right there.
I guess this is my central thesis here. WWE shouldn’t wait until mid September to promote the title matches with the utmost importance. I believe every WWE pay-per-view should hold the utmost importance with the championship matches. Again, some may point out to me that WWE essentially does do this, as title matches are being featured more prominently today on pay-per-view. Well to that I say I’m thankful. Titles like the Women’s Championship are being given more focus, the Tag Team Championships are somewhat involved in a new prominent tournament, and of course the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is involved in a prominent storyline. The best we can hope for is that every pay-per-view reminds us how important the championships, are all year round. The all important tagline for Night of Champions should be the basis of every pay-per-view: “Every championship, defended.”
Thank you for reading. I have a notebook full of ideas of things I’d like to discuss, and I’l have more content to write once this semester ends. This idea was just a small idea, nothing too big, nothing too fancy. See you next time!
