King of the Ring

**RatedGSuperstar** · 02-05-2009, 11:39 AM

The success has been pretty hit or miss. On one hand, you had guys like Austin, HHH, and Edge have their careers really take off after being named KOTR. On the other hand, they've also given the title to Billy Gunn and Ken Shamrock (and he actually beat the friggin' Rock in the finals).

The fact that it's so damn sporadic now lessens the meaning, IMO. It's like they get into the summer months and say "shit, we don't have anything to fill up a few episodes of Raw/Smackdown...screw it...let's bring back KOTR." The fact that they went from 2002 to 2006 without one (and then from '06 to '08) took a lot of the prestige away. That's long enough for almost a whole era of fans to never really be exposed to the tournament.

Who knows...maybe they could hype it up by being super prestigious by only holding one every two years or so (making the gaps intentional, instead of just forgetting about it for years at a time). But that would make too much sense. I do agree that the MITB match has kind of supplanted that honor, though.

02-05-2009, 11:39 AM	#9
RatedGSuperstar Stupid Sexy Flanders Posts: 1,728	The success has been pretty hit or miss. On one hand, you had guys like Austin, HHH, and Edge have their careers really take off after being named KOTR. On the other hand, they've also given the title to Billy Gunn and Ken Shamrock (and he actually beat the friggin' Rock in the finals). The fact that it's so damn sporadic now lessens the meaning, IMO. It's like they get into the summer months and say "shit, we don't have anything to fill up a few episodes of Raw/Smackdown...screw it...let's bring back KOTR." The fact that they went from 2002 to 2006 without one (and then from '06 to '08) took a lot of the prestige away. That's long enough for almost a whole era of fans to never really be exposed to the tournament. Who knows...maybe they could hype it up by being super prestigious by only holding one every two years or so (making the gaps intentional, instead of just forgetting about it for years at a time). But that would make too much sense. I do agree that the MITB match has kind of supplanted that honor, though.