List of WWE pay-per-view events

This article lists pay-per-view events promoted by WWE. WWE typically holds a pay-per-view event each month. In 2011, in the months May and October, WWE held two. WrestleMania is shared with the months of March/April, if held in April, then no pay-per-view is produced in March. With the exception of WrestleMania, each event is scheduled for three hours, although they sometimes run short of that time. Pay-per-view events are a significant part of the revenue stream for WWE.[1][2]

Contents

History

The first WWE, then known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), pay-per-view was November 1985's The Wrestling Classic, a tournament held at the Rosemont Horizon near Chicago.[3] The first WrestleMania event, in March of the same year, was available on pay-per-view in some markets.[4] The first two WrestleManias were financial successes, and after WrestleMania III became a popular event in wrestling history, the WWF then decided to expand their pay-per-view offerings

The first Survivor Series event occurred on November 29, 1987, scheduled to conflict with NWA's Starrcade. The WWF informed cable companies that if they chose to carry Starrcade, they would not be allowed to carry future WWF events. The vast majority of companies showed Survivor Series (only three opted to remain loyal to their contract with the NWA), and the resulting financial blow to Starrcade was in many ways the beginning of the end for Jim Crockett Promotions.[5] The debut of the Royal Rumble in January 1988 was actually shown on the USA Network, where it drew the highest rating to that time in the network's history. The event became a pay-per-view the following year.[6]

The first SummerSlam was held in Madison Square Garden in August 1988.[7] The Royal Rumble in January, WrestleMania in March or April, SummerSlam in August, and Survivor Series in November – were the only annual pay-per-view offerings until 1993, when the WWF started the King of the Ring in June. In May, 1995, the WWF began offering pay-per-views in the months that did not already have one. Initially, the WWF used the In Your House brand, but beginning in 1996 began using other names to complement the In Your House name (such as Bad Blood and No Way Out), to avoid confusion. Until recently, World Wrestling Entertainment had a once-a-month pay-per-view schedule, which they had from the late '90s until 2003 totaling twelve a year. In 2004 they offered a 13th pay-per-view, and in 2005 they offered 14 PPV's, 2006 had 16, and 2007 had 15. In 2008, New Year's Revolution was dropped from the lineup, bringing the number of pay-per-views back to 14. In 2010, WWE moved its Extreme Rules event from June to replace Backlash, leaving only one pay-per-view to be held in June and thus bringing back the yearly number of pay-per-views to 13. The pay-per-view events in the United States are offered by In Demand, Dish Network or DirecTV.

The WWE ran two yearly pay-per-views which were exclusive to the UK up to 2003, but after the brand extension occurred they were removed in favor of international tours, with a TV taping included. Currently, WWE has the WrestleMania Revenge tour, after WrestleMania, at the beginning of the year and the Survivor Series tour, at the end of the year, in the UK. Each includes a Raw and SmackDown taping. In Australia, WWE's pay-per-views are shown on Main Event. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, some pay-per-views are shown on Sky Sports 1 and others on Sky Sports Box Office. Starting with the 2008 Royal Rumble, all WWE pay-per-views are broadcast in North America in High-definition, with similar HD broadcasts starting in the United Kingdom and Ireland from WrestleMania XXIV.

Active and upcoming events

The following is a list of the current, active titles for events scheduled by WWE.

Date[8] Event[8] Venue City[8]
January 29, 2012 Royal Rumble Scottrade Center[9] St. Louis, Missouri
February 19, 2012 Elimination Chamber Bradley Center Milwaukee, Wisconsin
April 1, 2012 WrestleMania XXVIII[10] Sun Life Stadium[10] Miami Gardens, Florida [10]
April 29, 2012 Extreme Rules Allstate Arena Chicago, Illinois
May 20, 2012 Over the Limit RBC Center Raleigh, North Carolina
June 17, 2012 Bragging Rights[11] TBA TBA
July 15, 2012 Money in the Bank Thomas & Mack Center[12] Las Vegas, Nevada
August 19, 2012 SummerSlam Staples Center Los Angeles, California[13]
September 16, 2012 Night of Champions[14] Consol Energy Center Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 7, 2012 Hell in a Cell[15] TBA TBA
October 28, 2012 Vengeance[16] TBA TBA
November 18, 2012 Survivor Series[17] TBA TBA
December 16, 2012 TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs[18] TBA TBA

Brand extension

In June 2003, WWE announced the continuation of its brand extension and made its pay-per-view events each exclusive to a particular brand (Raw, SmackDown!, ECW (2006)). The only exceptions to the pay-per-view split were the "Big Four" events (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) which remained inclusive of all WWE brands. The pay-per-view split allowed WWE to eventually add more events to their pay-per-view line-up. From late 2005, pay-per-views would start to frequently have inter-branded matches. In March 2007, it was announced that pay-per-view events would go back to the old format, where the events would all be tri-branded, with the last uni-branded event being No Way Out and the first tri-branded event being Backlash (after WrestleMania 23).[19] The brand-exclusive events were:

Pay-per-view Brand Years Notes
New Year's Revolution Raw 2005–2007
Bad Blood Raw 2003–2004
Vengeance Raw 2004–2006 In 2003, Vengeance was a SmackDown!-exclusive event.[20]
Unforgiven Raw 2003–2008
Cyber Sunday Raw 2004–2008 From 2004–2005, the event was promoted under the name Taboo Tuesday.[21][22][23]
Armageddon SmackDown! 2004–2006 In 2003, Armageddon was a Raw-exclusive event.[24]
No Way Out SmackDown! 2004–2007
Judgment Day SmackDown! 2004–2006
The Great American Bash SmackDown! 2004–2006
No Mercy SmackDown! 2003–2006
December to Dismember ECW 2006 This was the only ECW exclusive pay-per-view.[25]

Former pay-per-view events

Pay-per-view Year (s) Active Notes
The Wrestling Classic 1985
This Tuesday in Texas 1991
King of the Ring 1993–2002
In Your House 1995–1999
Bad Blood 1997, 2003–2004
Over the Edge 1998–1999 Discontinued after the death of Owen Hart at the 1999 event.
Fully Loaded 1998–2000 Replaced by Invasion in 2001, and permanently discontinued when replaced by Vengeance in 2002.
Invasion 2001
One Night Stand 2005–2008
December to Dismember 2006
New Year's Revolution 2005–2007 This pay-per-view was removed because WWE decided to reduce the number of pay-per-views per year.
Unforgiven 1998–2008
No Mercy 1999–2008
Cyber Sunday Taboo Tuesday (2004–2005),
Cyber Sunday (2006–2008)
Armageddon 1999–2000, 2002–2008
No Way Out 1998, 2000–2009
Backlash 1999–2009
Judgment Day 1998, 2000–2009
The Bash The Great American Bash (2004–2008),
The Bash (2009)
Breaking Point 2009
Fatal 4-Way 2010
Capitol Punishment 2011

International pay-per-view events

Pay-per-view Year (s) Active Notes
SummerSlam 1992 only The event took place in the UK in 1992.
One Night Only 1997 only The event took place in the UK in 1997. This was available in Europe and Canada only.
Capital Carnage 1998 only The event took place in the UK in December of that year.
No Mercy (UK) 1999 only The event took place in May of that year. Despite being held in the UK, another PPV called "No Mercy" was held the same year in the U.S.
Rebellion 1999–2002 The event took place in the UK in October 1999 and 2002, November 2001 and December 2000.
Insurrextion 2000–2003 The event took place in the UK in May between 2000–2002 and June in 2003.

References

  1. ^ "WWE Corporate 2003 Quarter 1 Issues". WWE. 2003-08-13. http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2003/2003_08_25.jsp. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  2. ^ "WWE Corporate 2003 Quarter 2". WWE. 2003-11-17. http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2003/2003_11_17.2.jsp. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  3. ^ "Survivor Series 1989 Venue history". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/survivorseries/history/1989/venue/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  4. ^ William Taaffe (1985-04-29). "How Wrestling Got Tv In Its Clutches - 04.29.85 - SI Vault". Sportsillustrated.cnn.com. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119395/index.htm. Retrieved 2011-02-03. 
  5. ^ Cohen, Eric. "The History of Survivor Series". About.com. http://prowrestling.about.com/od/ringresults/a/survivorseries.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  6. ^ "Royal Rumble History". Bella. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art53968.asp. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  7. ^ "Summerslam Venue 1988 Venue History". WWE. Archived from the original on 2007-12-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071212234823/http://www.wwe.com/shows/summerslam07/history/1988/venue/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  8. ^ a b c Caldwell, James (2011-06-14). "WWE News: WWE officially adds September PPV to line-up, updated remaining 2011 PPV schedule". Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_50762.shtml. Retrieved 2011-06-23. 
  9. ^ "Location revealed for 2012 Royal Rumble". 2011-04-28. http://www.wrestlingnewsarena.com/2011/04/location-revealed-for-2012-wwe-royal-rumble/. Retrieved 2011-08-24. 
  10. ^ a b c Varsallone, Jim (2011-02-09). "WrestleMania 28 headed to Met Life Stadium". The Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/09/2057187/wrestlemania-28-headed-to-sun.html. Retrieved 2011-02-09. 
  11. ^ http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/news/216911
  12. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  13. ^ http://www.wwe.com/shows/summerslam/summerslam-2012-travel-packages
  14. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  15. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  16. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  17. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  18. ^ WWE Official 2012 Magazine Calendar
  19. ^ "WWE Pay-Per-Views to follow WrestleMania formula". WWE. http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2007/2007_03_14.jsp. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  20. ^ "Vengeance 2003 Homepage". WWE. Archived from the original on 2007-11-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20071114193106/http://www.wwe.com/shows/vengeance/history/vengeance2003/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  21. ^ "Cyber Sunday All time results". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/cybersunday/history/alltimeresults. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  22. ^ "Taboo Tuesday 2004 Results". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/cybersunday/history/2004/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  23. ^ "Taboo Tuesday 2005 Homepage". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/cybersunday/history/2005/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  24. ^ "WWE Armageddon 2003 Homepage". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/armageddon/history/2003/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 
  25. ^ "December to Dismember 2006 Homepage". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/decembertodismember/. Retrieved 2007-12-01. 

External links

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List of pay-per-view events  · Free for All