Should WWE bring back the King of the Ring PPV?
 

Instead of doing these crappy ass events on Raw!. Should they bring back the original King of the Ring concept pay per view?. In my eyes I think so it was a lot entertaining back around the 1996 era... It also made Austin Famous :D

Yes. As long as they do it correctly, whereas it actually leads to a push, and not just some arbitrary title to give someone.

Rather have that than any of these shitty gimmick PPV's anyway.

To be fair, Regal fucked up that push.

Wouldn't mind at all if going forward they replaced the TLC PPV with King of the Ring.

What he said. but also didn't King Booker fuck it up to?

Booker won the title after winning KOTR...

Short answer: YES! Long answer:YES YES YES YES YES YES!
I think you know what I mean.

Definitely. Cut back the PPVs to five...Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King Of The Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. And bring back Saturday Night's Main Event and/or The Main Event for the months they have no PPVs.

Cutting back to five loses a lot of money so it is not going to happen.

It's better on Raw. It gives them a chance to focus on eight guys who wouldn't all normally be on a PPV in singles matches. The prestige of a PPV isn't real anyway. After all, the guy has won the same tournament.

I meant in general, though.

In general, the KOTR generally gets a push.

They should bring it back..... a 64 Man Tournament with Qualifying, 1st Round & 2nd Round Matches airing on Raw, Smackdown & Superstars in the weeks leading to the PPV and the Quarters & Semis occuring on the PPV itself.....

I wouldn't do a 64 man tournament for the King of the Ring. Maybe for a world title.

I'd almost go as far as to say that King Booker used winning the tournament to his advantage better than anybody else who ever won it.

As far as the PPV, it would be cool, but I'm just happy it's around in any capacity. Raw is fine.

Are there even 64 workers on regular TV?

WWE has like 85 wrestlers on the roster, not including announcers and non-wrestlers. Maybe 75-80 after females.

WWE presents Tables Match

The last 5 King of the Ring winners were Kurt Angle, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Booker T, and William Regal.
They all led to main event pushes, including Regal's, but he failed a drug test.

What are you people talking about?

Well if there WERE to be a 64 person tournament, I think King of the Ring would be better than a World title tournament unless all 64 people seemed like they deserved a shot at the title.

In general, though. Like Bret, Owen, Stone Cold, Triple H

totally forgot Shamrock won

I only think that to go through 64 guys JUST for the KOTR is a bit much without something else on the line. The same can be said about the Rumble in terms of jobbers not deserving to main event Mania.

Though thinking about it, it would give someone a huge rub for winning that many rounds and give matches actual meaning, so I guess it wouldn't be all bad.

The only "iffy" Kings of the Ring that I can remember are Mabel and Billy Gunn. Ken Shamrock should have maybe done more, but it didn't feel weird when he won it.

There are Royal Rumble qualifying matches these days though, so the LOWEST jobbers don't even really get into the match anymore (which I am a fan of). But even with what you're saying, they start to get spread a little thin with just 30 people. I couldn't imagine who'd be jobbing in the first round of a 64 person tourney. Probably Justin Roberts or somebody.

The first round would take a month by itself with 32 matches. It's not really feasible time-wise, either, when you consider how much storyline advancement they need to make with non-KOTR feuds.

Unless they made it this year-long build, which could be pretty epic.

True, but they DO have at least 64 on the main roster (not including females, announcers, etc), and they could include some FCW guys as a form of introducing them to WWE.

Yea, Shamrock winning it didn't pan out but at the time they were making an effort to push him.
Hindsight is easy to say he shouldn't have won it, but at the time they definitely felt he could have used it. The Rock could have won it, but he clearly didn't need it as much.

As for Billy Gunn, he didn't pan out either, but again they were definitely making an effort to push him.
He went on to have a Summerslam program with The Rock after that. Enough said.
In hindsight, I still am not sure there was a better candidate than him that year.
It was a transitional period, and the Angle/Jericho wave hadn't come in yet.
The only other plausible choices that year were probably X-Pac and Road Dogg, tbh.

The "flukes" are definitely exceptions to the general rule that KOTR winners are usually main event bound. But even then, they definitely make an effort rather than just intentionally throwing it away.

Even Mabel was put into Summerslam's main event, but I'm still petitioning to have that PPV stricken from the record books.

Notice I didn't try to defend that one

Sorry, that can't happen because Michaels/Razor II was on that PPV.

I wasn't talking about PEOPLE specifically or referring to anyone in particular. I was saying that if it came back after being away for so long, it would need to actually mean a real push and not just some "label" to give a guy that they give up on in 2 weeks later.

*THROWS OUT BATH WATER*

What baby?

I honestly don't think there's ever been any evidence to support them doing that though

I think it's a "WWE doesn't do anything right anymore so they won't do this right" type of thing.

What I liked about Booker T's win was that he continued to incorporate the 'king' gimmick long after the tournament was over. Not everybody did that. Owen Hart did to an extent. King Mabel did, but it sucked. Booker T made it work pretty well, I thought.

Does William Regal's titantron still say "2008 King of the Ring"?

Yes, lol.

I wish more people had past accomplishments in their titantrons. Triple H's could say "FORMER EUROPEAN CHAMPION" or something.

In the past, yeah. But nowadays the E frequently pushes guys and then falls back....then pushes another guy and then falls back on him...

If they were to bring it back, and have, lets say, Kofi win it, I'd want them to go full out with the push, and not just stop the push the minute he misses a spot with Orton again, ya know?

The allure of it being KotR would mean so much more, and much more exciting if as a fan you KNEW it would create a new star, or thrust a guy towards the main event, similar to how the Royal Rumble USED to be.

Hornswoggle's should say "Longest-reigning Cruiserweight Champion".

I'm sure he has the record by now.

The Macho King was pretty great.

Kurt Angle also carried the crown and cape around for a while, which was pretty funny.
It was particular funny when he tried to explain what a king is to Taka and Funaki. "Sort of like an Emperor, or head ninja."

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_KQiaHQTrzk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_KQiaHQTrzk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

I know what you're getting at, but I just don't agree. I don't think the WWE is that bad, and hasn't shown that they will do that, ever.
It plays into what Xero pointed out, about people just not trusting WWE on certaom things anymore, even if they have no reason not to (on those things).

I'm not just going to sit here and say I'm worried WWE is going to have some nobody win the Rumble and main event Wrestlemania because they are poopy PG now.

I know how you mean, and I used to feel pretty much the same way. As of late though, I've been thinking about it with a more sports-oriented mind.

You know how people complain that former champions...lets say, Jack Swagger for example...start losing a bunch of matches/credibility after their title reigns? I don't think that's such a terrible thing. Think about a sports team that has an AMAZING season, but then they suck the next year. That has definitely happened before, and I don't think it's unreasonable for it to happen in WWE either.

Winning King of the Ring can sort of be equated to making the postseason playoffs. It's impressive to do it, but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to win the championship, you know?

The Macho King was amazing, but he didn't win any King of the Ring tournament, did he?

He did. 1987.

Yea. 1987

Did you know? 8 of the KOTR events have been held in a New England arena?

All but 2 of them on the East Coast. Including the Raw ones. And those 2 exceptions are Ohio. Weird.

I would actually rather have some nobody win. I want to see them actually invest in a guy full throttle, like Del Rio, etc. I'm not saying I don't trust the E to do it right, as they've been doing an EXCELLENT job as of late, I'm saying that while they did a great job with it before, that was before. Stars are different. Creative is different. The goal of the product is different. Politics are different, ya know? The question was, should they bring it back, and I'm saying, yes, if they do it correctly and adequately push the guy to help get him (more) over.

I agree. I take no issue with Swagger losing matches like he has been because, yes, he was a World Champ, had a run, and I'm sure will have another. At the end of the day, he's a former world champ and if they wanna throw him in a program with Orton, Big Show, Cena, whoever, they can do it and it be somewhat feasible to the average fan.

For the sake of example, if they had Cody win it, helped it get him more over as a heel, run with it included in his gimmick, and in 3 years he's still not had ONE title run, or decent program with an upper midcarder, or vet, I'd take issue with the original decision.

Nice. I was 4 years old at the time. I always wondered how he became "king".

Remember when the Buffalo Bills went to like 4 Super Bowls in a row and lost all of them?

Yeah but the front office didn't write the script on that though...

I kinda like it when talented midcarders just never win titles. I'm serious too. There needs to be more of that.
Because it makes the fans want it more when they finally win it.
Everything moves faster now. When Shawn Michaels left The Rockers, it took him some time to get IC gold, and 5 years to win the title.
Nowadays that all probably would have happened in a year or two.

It's nice to still see wrestlers that have been around for years finally get there. It builds character, and a connection with the audience.
I think that's why so many people were happy to see RVD and Jeff Hardy finally get there, even if they fucked it up.

I can agree with this. I like the build to an extent because eventually you want to see this guy win it all. I loved how they'd throw a bone now and then and have Hardy fighting for the title, have him lose, and then fall off of it for a year. When he FINALLY got it, it was amazing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want a guy randomly to win then get pushed to the moon and win the title a month later. I just dont want to see a guy win it just to do....nothing afterwards, even to the point where they dont even point out that he was a former KotR winner.

If they're going to have most PPVs have a theme/gimmick, then I think KOTR should be one.

Otherwise, no, a PPV shouldn't be built around KOTR as I think the original reason they got rid of it after 2002 was that it didn't draw.

If it's on a PPV, they should be doing the whole 8-man tournament on one night instead of just the semi-finals and finals.

To be honest, I'd like it if there was a King of the Ring PPV in June next year. You could have Swagger be the kayfabe reason for it. I believe he was protesting the concept of "Fatal 4-Way" as a PPV, since he lost the World Heavyweight Title there. Swagger could petition to bring back King of the Ring, and be presented as a favourite to become the 2011 King.

More so than the tournament making anybody, though -- the performers make the tournament. Bret Hart and Owen Hart breathed such great life into it, but legitimately being two of the best workers in the world. In 1996, Stone Cold Steve Austin's memorable promo cemented him as a figure the world should care about. Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar were guys with legitimate backgrounds and on the rise.

The more I think about it, the more I want Daniel Bryan to win the crown this year. He's the best in the ring, and serviceable on the mic. It'd be pretty hectic if they had a ceremony on RAW the following week, where they invited Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and Triple H (one Bryan's trainer and the others former Kings). The Miz could crash the ceremony, and it could lead to a match between The Miz and Bryan with both titles on the line.

Next year, I'd give the win to Swagger, just because I think he might need it more then.

It should return, but only if they do it right and the way it should've always been done: the winner gets a shot at the title of his show at SummerSlam.

They should also give some sort of trophy with it. I liked when they did that in 2001 with Edge. A few other times, they had the winner put the crown on and all that.

Remember when Christian would carry around Edge's trophy all the time? Those were the days.

Vickie made him hand over the title cause she was concerned about him getting his ass kicked by Jamie BY GOD Noble. Then the title went away for good.

:(

It's kind of redundant seeing as this year we've had 3 MITB winners, which has given 2 guys first time wins. The young talent doesn't really need KOTR anymore.

Well, MITB is a tool to give a main event push, just like KOTR usually is. So I guess you could say there are already enough tools, but there is also twice the roster.
And there's a much bigger talent pool of young stars than there has been in a very long time.

I can think of a handful of guys who could really benefit from a KOTR win, who didn't win and use one of the MITB cases this year.

That's a good point. The royal rumble and KOTR were the two main PPVs for young talent to get their initial main event pushes. MITB has increased the likelihood of pushes for younger talent.

The timing is good for KOTR, because all the MITB briefcases are cashed in, and we have a two month gap till the rumble. The E have been warming up to pushing first timers in the winter months before WM season, so it's a good time of year to test the waters with new talent. It worked for Sheamus this time last year.