Cageside Countdown: Worst Wrestling PPVs Ever

So... Battleground happened. Opinions vary wildly from it was good and enjoyable to awful as usual. I think we're all in agreement that it was far from the worst show ever.

What makes a bad wrestling PPV? Bad matches, obviously. Bad booking, sure. Stories that have a less than desirable payoff, sure. Maybe it's a show lacking in entertainment or redeeming qualities. It's not only a show that doesn't meet the fans' expectations, it falls so short of them, the show's probably better for not happening at all. Criteria of what makes a good PPV is different from one person to the next, but honestly, we can probably all point out a truly great or truly awful show when we see it. This week's countdown is dedicated to the awful. The really awful. In fact...

the worst wrestling PPVs ever.

As voted on by you, the Cagesiders. But before we salute the worst of the worst, here are...

ten honorable mentions, or ten shows we still recommend you not watch. Did I say ten? Better make that twelve. A dirty dozen, if you will.

1. The first major WCW show following the firing of Eric Bischoff (and the death of referee Mark Curtis), WCW Fall Brawl 1999 was a comedy of errors. Except nobody was laughing. You'd think this was a Russo-booked deal, but it wasn't (Russo didn't arrive until a few weeks later). The show, a cap-off to a very tumultuous summer for the company, ended with STING TURNING HEEL. Sting, the franchise of WCW and one of the most beloved wrestlers of the 20th century, turned heel. To a huge pop, mind you, because fuck Hulk Hogan. But STING TURNED HEEL. For a lot of people, this was the breaking point for WCW.

2. The previous year's Halloween Havoc had Hulk Hogan-Ric Flair II. Halloween Havoc 1995 had a monster truck sumo match that ended in the attempted murder of the Giant, followed a half hour later by The Giant NO-SELLING MURDER. There's also a weird Giant-Hogan-YET-TAY orgy in there somewhere, and, oh yeah, Hulk Hogan losing the WCW world title WITHOUT ACTUALLY BEING BEATEN FOR IT because of something HIS MANAGER did. Oh yeah, and Sting is still a goddamn idiot for trusting Ric Flair.

3. A few months before Philadelphia-based ECW entered the national conversation, WCW tried their hand at extreme wrestling with Uncensored 1995. But there were a number of things wrong with this supposedly "unsanctioned" show: a no-DQ match ended with a disqualification, the King of the Road match that had to be heavily edited due to bleeding, and Hulk Hogan defeating Ric Flair in a strap match even though he was not a participant in the strap match. Huh? What?

4. Halloween Havoc 1998 was main evented by a classic for the WCW world title between Bill Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page. Too bad most people didn't see it. The PPV ran long and (1) WCW didn't bother to tell PPV providers they were going to run long and/or (2) PPV providers that were told simply said nope. Finish it in three hours or we're cutting it off. WCW didn't finish in three hours, so most PPV providers gave their viewers the blue screen of death at 11:00...right after they watched the atrocity that was Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior II: Electric Boogaloo. You know, cutting out a couple of in-ring interviews and dance segments and about three matches would have gotten you to three hours and saved your company millions in refunds you didn't have to give out. Just... just saying.

5. The 2014 edition of the Royal Rumble may be one of the great exercises in cluelessness in WWE history. Where to begin: the New Age Outlaws, well into their 40s, won the WWE tag titles (because Triple H is their BFF); Daniel Bryan, WWE's hottest act in years, loses in the opener, Brock Lesnar wastes Big Show in under three minutes (followed by a ten-minute beatdown), Cena-Orton DCCLXIX, and Batista, who hadn't even been back a week, wins the Royal Rumble match. A Royal Rumble match that did not include Daniel Bryan for some reason. And once Daniel Bryan's exclusion was made official, people turned on the show. But it did include an on-his-last-legs CM Punk going nearly 50 minutes. The Rumble and Punk walking out later in the week was more than enough for fans to take.

6. When Eric Bischoff created the nWo, he had the idea that the group would be not just a stable, but its own entity, with their own shows and everything. That all went out the window with the nWo's lone PPV, Souled Out 1997. Heel commentary, heel referee, racist ring announcer (or is it xenophobic?), drab set, WCW competitors practically getting squashed in mostly awful matches, the Miss nWo pageant. Oh, and it was on Super Bowl Saturday, when the country's pretty much got football on the mind. The world is better for this show bombing.

7. Speaking of exercises in cluelessness and futility, The Great American Bash 1991 is arguably the worst show WCW's ever put on. While the card may not have been salvageable (you start with a capture-the-flag rules scaffold match, you know there's no saving this show), the show could have easily been saved if Jim Herd made nice with Ric Flair. But Flair was released (or quit) just two weeks before the event. As a testament to how much he was beloved, fans during the world title match between Lex Luger and Barry Windham chanted "We Want Flair!" throughout the bout. Through the whole show, if you think about it. Most of the people wrestling that night simply went through the motions out of protest.

8. Wonder why people had little confidence in Battleground? Battleground 2013. It set the precedent. The show's lone bright spot was the Rhodes brothers winning their jobs back with a victory over The Shield. Taking away from that: The Real Americans get stuck with a comedy duo, CM Punk and Ryback lulls us to sleep, and Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton ends in a no contestu when Big Show interferes and ruins everything. It deserved to be the runaway winner for Wrestling Observer Newsletter's worst show of 2013.

9. Summerslam 2010 had all the ingredients of a Worst PPV Ever: the opening match that didn't have a finish, THE GREATEST DIVAS MATCH OF ALL TIME (sarcasm), Big Show going over the second hottest stable in the company at the time, a world title match also having a screwy finish even though the stipulations demanded an absolute finish, and to top it off, SuperCena at its worst, taking down Nexus and the hottest angle in recent memory down with it. But hey, it did have the return of Daniel Bryan Danielson.  If TNA wasn't having an all-time shitty year, this would have gotten some votes for Worst Show of 2010.

10. Uncensored 1996 took the absurdity of the first Uncensored and turned it up to eleven. Johnny B. Badd leaves the company shortly before the PPV, forcing quite the shuffling of the card. The Booty Man. A 30-minute street fight that wasn't good. Loch Ness. Col. Robert Parker beating one of the most accomplished women's wrestlers in American history. None of that compared to the Doomsday Cage Match of Doom, where eight men were sacrificed to the altar of Hulkamania...and of course Ric Flair eats the pin.

11. The months-long tease of who THEY were was finally revealed at Bound for Glory 2010... when THEY were revealed to be Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Jeff Jarrett, and Abyss. To the surprise of no one. Jeff Hardy, who was TNA's biggest merchandise mover, turning heel, well, that was a surprise. It was also stupid as turning him heel likely flushed hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue down the toilet. The show also had Kevin Nash going over in what turned out to be his final TNA match, ex-ECW stars going over TNA's own talent, and Mickie James making her debut with the company...as a referee. Oh, and did I mention THEY were revealed? Or did I mean THEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

12. The Undertaker won the WWF Championship in this event, but Over the Edge 1999 will forever be remembered for what happened with Owen Hart. Owen's safety harness released far sooner than intended, sending him 70 feet to the mat. While doctors worked frantically to save his life—an effort that ultimately proved futile—the decision was made to continue the show, even though most probably knew Hart would not make it. The controversial call is still hotly debated to this day. Ultimately, all that came out of the event was a lot of heartbreak, a few lawsuits, and a deep wound between WWE and the Hart family that will likely never heal.

Think those are bad? Yeah, they are. They pretty much are. But as any smark knows, the worst is yet to come. So avert your eyes as we run down...

The ten worst PPVs ever.

(As voted on by you, the Cagesiders. So if you don't like the list, it's your fault.)

10. WWE Great American Bash 2006

While the event has a rich tradition, its latter days were... varying degrees of awful if we're being honest. So why this event got the WWE reboot and not say...Fall Brawl for example, I'll never know. The 2004 and 2005 editions have been strong contenders for worst shows ever, but the 2006 edition might make the 1991 edition look like Wrestlemania X-Seven. Okay, that was probably hyperbole. But many of the big stories heading into this PPV had to be nuked due to injury (Mark Henry) or something called "elevated liver enzymes" (The Great Khali, Super Crazy, Bobby Lashley). Oh, and that Punjabi Prison match made Kennel from Hell look like Undertaker-Mankind. Ok, also hyperbole. The show is probably better than I'm making it out to be, but the event may have exposed a lot of holes in the roster. But hey... ALL HAIL... KING BOOKAH!

9. WCW New Blood Rising

WCW in the year 2000 was a hot mess. This isn't a HAWT TAEK. This is fact. The peak of that hot mess may be WCW's first PPV following the controversial departure of Hulk Hogan, New Blood Rising. The show was named after WCW's big stable at the time...a stable that had by the way disbanded. So... here's what's on this mess of a show:

• Tank Abbott in a sleeveless t-shirt with the nipples exposed. This is a thing that happened, everyone.
• The Great Muta losing to Ernest Miller.
• JUDY BAGWELL ON A FORKLIFT.
• Said match with Bagwell on a forklift ending with a David Arquette run-in.
• A tag title match with the approximate population of Surrey, British Columbia involved.
• A Yappapi Indian Strap match.
• A mud wrestling match that led to a MISCARRAIGE ANGLE.
• Sting, the franchise of WCW, SQUASHING the KISS Demon in 52 seconds (Meanwhile, Ernest Miller gets seven minutes).
• A Canadian rules match with The Mountie as the special referee WHEN THEY HAD BRET HART IN THE BUILDING. IN CANADA.
• A second tag title match involving most of Whistler, British Columbia.
• Goldberg "shooting" out of the finish AND THE COMMENTATORS OPENLY SAYING AS SUCH HAPPENED, MURDERING KAYFABE ON AIR.
• A Vince Russo cameo.

Ok, the show ended with a decent Booker T-Jeff Jarrett match, but at a time when the WWF was ON FIRE, WCW was in no position to put out clunkers, especially after the Bash at the Beach debacle a month earlier. If people weren't getting off the WCW train before, I'm pretty sure people were jumping off en masse. Amazingly, it only finished third for Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Worst Major Show of 2000 (Superbrawl 2000 finished second. Halloween Havoc won.)

8. WWF Wrestlemania IX

Set during one of the worst years in wrestling history, Wrestlemania IX may have been rock bottom for the company. The steroid scandal pretty much cleared the company of everyone associated with it in its heyday, fans were less and less in to the cartoonish aspect, and the Giant Gonzalez existed. Yup. That happened, everyone. Forget the Roman motif and Jim Ross making his WWF debut here for a moment. Macho Man Randy Savage, all of ten months older than Hulk Hogan, sat on the sidelines on commentary after being told by Vince McMahon he was too old to draw (this after he had the best match at Wrestlemania two years running and three of the last four). It didn't stop the WWF from promoting Hulk Hogan's in-ring return to the company over the WWF Champion. So how did the WWF's trip to Caesars Palace pan out:

• The show opened with an 18-minute match that ended on a disqualification, and not one of those instant DQs. It was the worst kind of DQ: a DQ that's called when the soon-to-be champion has the match in hand.
• The Steiners versus the Headshrinkers was okay, but how they didn't kill each other, I don't know. There were a few scary spots in that match.
• Who could forget Twin Magic '93 with two Doinks fooling Crush (not gonna lie, that was clever).
• Bob Backlund loses his first television match in just over three minutes. On a small package. With no fanfare. And even less recognition.
• The show's main event, the tag title match, also ends on a disqualification, and Hogan celebrates for an eternity.
• Lex Luger and Mr. Perfect fell short of their potential. Because Luger isn't that good. And Perfect's best days were behind him.
• GIANT GONZALEZ. AIRBRUSHED BODY SUIT.
• WWF Champion Bret Hart loses to Yokozuna in about eight minutes...only to lose the title to Hulk Hogan less than two minutes later, basically burying everything the WWF had done in the last six months to get out of the Hulkamania era.

To top it off, Hogan practically disappears from WWF television for the entirety of the time between this show and King of the Ring, which would be Hogan's last with the company for nearly a decade. The hideousness of this edition of the "Showcase of the Immortals" exposed how far the WWF had fallen in just a short amount of time. Little did they know there was still some distance to go.

7. WWF King of the Ring 1995

And here's where the WWF may have bottomed out. This farce of a show was unfortunately dropped on the good people(?) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A potential Undertaker-Shawn Michaels semifinal could have been kinda awesome... but both go one and out (Undertaker loses, Shawn wrestles to a tie). Philly has none of the Savio Vega underdog story. Oh, and Mabel wins. Mabel.

MABEL.

Because he's a Vince McMahon guy: huge, immobile, can barely do five moves. In fact, the crowd so openly crapped on this show, Vince was forced to acknowledge it on commentary and look into this "ECW! ECW! ECW!" As it turned out, so did a lot of fans. Not even Bret Hart finally ending his interminable feud with Jerry Lawler could save this show. But then again, what chance did this show really have with Diesel and Sid both in the main event? After all, they decided a guy closer to 600 pounds than 500 made a better King of the Ring than a mortician or a heartbreaker.

6. TNA Victory Road 2009

When the most positive thing said on the show has to do with the promotional poster, you've got problems. Angelina Love works the show with a concussion. A gimmicked taser with SMOKE coming out. Pretty sure that's not how a taser works. An IWGP tag title match with what may be one of the worst finishes ever. Kevin Nash, who won his first major championship back in 1993, beats the most prolific champion in TNA history. Clean. Booker T and Scott Steiner, clearly a makeshift team, beats world class tag team Beer Money. Taz debuts to a tepid reaction at the end of a hideous Samoa Joe-Sting match. Bobby Lashley, who had showed up at Lockdown three months earlier, is touted as a new signee and is shown in a radio interview. Kurt Angle and Mick Foley attempt to channel their prime and fail miserably.

But nothing compares...noTHING compares...to you, Jenna Morasca and Sharmell Huffman. MINUS. FIVE. STARS. And that's being generous. If you wonder why people think negatively of women's wrestling, I submit this match as Exhibits A, B, and C.

The Main Event Mafia, TNA's Heel Stable of the Moment ^TM, wound up with nearly every championship in the company. It reeked of the nWo/New Blood days of yesteryear, and only furthered the notion that they care more about talent that made their name elsewhere than talent they grew in their own backyard.

5. WWE Tables Ladders and Chairs (and Stairs) 2014

The fall of 2014 may be some of the worst television WWE has ever put on. That may be hyperbole. But it probably isn't. But the gap between main roster WWE programming and their developmental counterpart, NXT, was never more exposed than during a five-day period just before Christmas. Because during that five-day period, the same company that put on NXT: R-Evolution put on an eleventh hour candidate for worst show of the year. I'll let the General go in on this one since he, like a lot of you, watched the show and I simply refuse to.

I'm having this huge issue where I can't get behind any of the babyfaces in WWE. Literally not a single one because none of them are sympathetic. Randy Orton was getting there just before he left, unleashing an unbridled but righteous anger that allowed you to feel invested in it. You wanted it.

...

There's no crisis in WWE. The babyfaces aren't being forced to dig deep to overcome adversity created by legitimate loss. They're just booked to lose because they're dumb. The Usos fell prey to a stunt double gimmick that has been going on for months, Rowan was pinned with stairs on his stomach when he easily could have lifted his shoulders up, AJ was distracted by someone who was literally being told to leave, and Ambrose didn't think to just unplug a monitor before he went charging at his opponent with it. To make matters worse, he beat the hell out of the monitor when he recovered from getting shocked with it. You can say "oh that's just the LUNATIC FRINGE, MAGGLE" but that's more like a petulant child misplacing blame and throwing a temper tantrum.

That's a babyface to get behind, right?

Yeah... no. No, Geno. No. It's hard to get behind a guy that loses due to incompetence on his own part. The best of WWE was showcased the Wednesday before the show. The worst of WWE was showcased on this night.

4. WWE Wrestlemania XXVII

A moment of disclosure, since I'm the one that nominated it: this isn't the worst Wrestlemania ever in my mind (that honor goes to IX, with XI at 1-A). But in terms of potential to actual output, yeah, this might be the worst ever. A show that featured The Rock, Steve Austin, and Trish Stratus, three pillars of the Attitude Era, should have been better than this. The problems begin even before the show proper begins. Daniel Bryan and Sheamus for the United States Championship is kicked to the preshow...only to be turned into a battle royal...which is somehow won by The Great Khali.

The guest host and star (make no mistake, he was the star) of the show The Rock opened with a ten-minute promo. I thought we were watching Wrestlemania, not Sunday Night RAW. This was also at the height of the guest host era, so there are A LOT of celebrity cameos on this show, including Pee-Wee Herman, Snoop Dogg, the guys from Deadliest Catch, and Snooki. The 8-man tag match lasts longer than the entrances. Edge wrestles his final match (admittedly, it was alright. So was Orton-Punk and Rhodes-Mysterio. Hell, Triple H-Undertaker wasn't terrible either, but damn it, it should have been Sting in there.) John Morrison and Dolph Ziggler, two of the better workers in the company at the time, serve as little more than window dressing for Snooki, who admittedly, did not stink on ice.

But two announcers, one who barely wrestles, the other who isn't a wrestler damnit, get 14 minutes on PPV. Fourteen minutes. And when it was announced that Jerry Lawler's Wrestlemania win got reversed on a technicality, you could literally hear the air deflate out of the Georgia Dome. The crowd and the home viewing audience had realized including pre- and post-match stuff, a half hour of their lives was just sucked away for this bullshit. There was no getting them back after that.

And it was compounded by a Miz-John Cena match stunk on ice. And it got a restart by The Rock because reasons. And The Rock interfered because reasons, leading to a win on the grandest stage of them all for The Miz because reasons... and Miz gets The People's Elbow from The Rock because, you guessed it, reasons.

The reasons were made clear the next night: they pulled a Survivor Series 1991 move on their paying customers. As that show served as nothing more than an advertisement for This Tuesday in Texas, Wrestlemania XXVII's main event was little more than an infomercial for Wrestlemania XXVIII.

3. Heroes of Wrestling

When you go to an indy show and you see a familiar name from the past making a one-time only appearance, you hope to see him perform the way you remembered him in his prime. It usually doesn't work out that way; Father Time and all that. Often, the best you get is maybe a fraction of their best stuff and maybe a good memory or three.

And sometimes you go to an indy show and you see a familiar name and face and they're nowhere as good as you once remember them. In fact, they're so much worse. Perhaps the biggest example of that is the 1999 outfit Heroes of Wrestling. Featuring mostly performers from the 1970 and 1980s well past their prime, the event was a trainwreck. And that's being nice about it.

When 1.25 stars out of 5... or 25 out of 100 is the best you can do, your show is awful. Hell, the average star rating for this show is -1.5. NEGATIVE ONE AND A HALF. That means Jimmy Snuka vs. Cowboy Bob Orton on this show could technically be considered an AVERAGE match.

But seriously, what's wrong with this show besides the hideous quality of it? Where do I begin? The production values make old school Ring of Honor look like Wrestlemania. The commentary is hideous. It could have been passable with Gordon Solie on the mic, but he fell ill prior to the event (he died the following summer). Randy Rosenbloom, who was probably thrown to the wolves at the eleventh hour, calls an arm drag a throw and infamously calls a dropkick a leg kick. Dutch Mantel, bless his heart, does not shut up. Like ever. (Hell, he didn't have much of a choice. He had to cover for Rosey's MANY blunders).

The Bushwhackers vs. Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff have a legit MINUS FIVE STARS match. It might even be minus six for all we know. They shot a heel turn on this show. A one-shot deal has a heel turn that nobody will care about. Please explain this (ok, there is actually a reasonable explanation. This was supposed to be the first in a series of shows, about four or five a year. But then the buyrate and reception came for the show.) Yokozuna, who was ACTIVELY chasing the world record for heaviest wrestler ever, cannot do diddly poo, basically killing the advertised main event.

Ohhhhhhh...and Jake "The Snake" Roberts was DRUNK. You know that saying "three sheets to the wind"? Roberts was a couple king size beds to the wind. He was BEYOND blitzed on this show. How the hell he was allowed out there I will never know.

Fans and pundits alike were left with the same reaction after viewing this monstrosity: probably mouth agape and in desperate need of a shower after putting up with probably the worst wrestling show ever. Fifteen years later, the infamy of this night in a casino in Mississippi lives on.

2. ECW December to Dismember 2006

In the words of wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez, this was a public execution of ECW you had to pay $40 for. I savaged this PPV last year in a 10 Reasons Why feature. But I'll sum it up for you. Two advertised matches, one of which had one of its advertised participants taken out DURING THE SHOW for reasons not fully explained (i.e. Vince). The show did not feel like the original ECW, nor it felt like ECW on Sci-Fi (there were four other matches on this show. They all sucked).

As for the show's main event, crowd favorite CM Punk is the first man eliminated in the show's main event. ECW original Rob Van Dam goes out next, leaving four Vince McMahon guys to duke it out, ending with Bobby Lashley (after struggling to get out of his pod) defeating a past-his-prime Test and an on-his-way-out-and-much-past-his-prime Big Show to win the ECW title. Paul Heyman and Big Show to their credit both knew the show would bomb, and they wound up being right. So of course, Vince blames Paul for the show sucking to such a degree.

The show did suck to such a degree, fans were chanting "TNA! TNA! TNA!" while the show was in progress. Fans could be seen leaving a half hour into the show. When patrons at the show say a post-show brawl in the parking lot is the best part of the evening, you've done a poor job. This was the death of the ECW we knew and love. The event was positioned to fail from the start (it was in the middle of a four PPVs in seven weeks period), and not only did it fail, it failed spectacularly on all counts. At least nobody knowingly showed up high or drunk on the show, which is more than what I could say for the final entry.

1. TNA Victory Road 2011.

Yeah... see that poster? Yeah, that's Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle. You may know him as a guy that won a gold medal with a broken freaking neck. Yeah, well he's not on the show. Having stars on the promotional poster and not on the show is hardly a new phenomenon. But let's be honest. This isn't why you voted this #1.

This is why. I'm not one to talk about the vices of others, but I'll simply say this. There are times when said vices should not come out...like when you're at work and have the well-being of other people in your hands. Because that not only affects you. That affects a lot of people.

TNA sent Jeff Hardy out to the ring in this condition (if you cannot tell by the GIF, he's beyond high). He was in that condition on the day of the show. He was seen in this condition on the day of the show. Yet, their employer said, you're good, bro. Knock 'em dead. Mind you, he's clearly not okay. Not even a little bit. So after some stalling, Sting beats Hardy in a minute and a half. As the crowd chants "bullshit", Sting openly acknowledges, "I agree." So do we, Sting. So do we.

I could savage this show, but Vectron did it in a Historically Significant Disasters of Wrestling edition just over a year ago. GrecoRomanGuy did a Retroactive Reconstruction a few months ago. Even Wrestlecrap took a few swings at it earlier this month. But perhaps no one gnawed at the carcass quite like wrestling pundit Bryan Alvarez, who took a chainsaw to this match for Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

Sting vs. Jeff Hardy for the TNA Title. Hardy wobbled down to the ring all unsteady, tripping on the ring steps on the way in. They did the fancy ring introductions, then Eric Bischoff came out and said there had been a change in plans. He said they'd had a situation on March 3rd where the Network got involved in their business. Bischoff went on and on and on and wouldn't just spit out what he was trying to say. Long story short, this match is no-DQ. Sting punched him right in the face. Bischoff made a funny sound when he got punched. That was the only redeeming thing about this. Jeff took off his shirt and started walking around the ring teasing that he'd throw the shirt into the crowd. Then he just dropped it. What a meanie. 

So they locked up, then Sting punched him, hooked him in the death drop and pinned him. Match, and this is including the t-shirt bullshit, went 1 minute and 29 seconds. They showed a replay and they tried to pretend that Jeff tried to kick out but Sting wouldn't let him. It's 2011 and we're supposed to believe that Sting shot on Jeff Hardy in a PPV main event a minute in. WITH HIS FUCKING FINISHER. Someone screamed something and Sting, on the ramp, looked at them and screamed, "I AGREE!" And that was the end of this show. 

Normally I wouldn't rate this, but we're on a roll with negative star matches so let's keep this alive. (-*) Yes, MINUS FIVE STARS. How do I justify this rating? Well, one of two things happened here. Maybe this whole thing was a stupid work. You know, the Pillman loose cannon deal with Hardy playing the role of wrestler-in-no-condition-to-perform, trying to get Internet fans talking. Well, if that's the case, this is the best they could come up with? If this was a work, and you were going to do this one-minute finish, at least have it go on second-to-last and come up with some creative excuse to put something else in the main event slot. Isn't that the point of having a CREATIVE TEAM? If this was a work they bent over and fucked in the ass their most die-hard, loyal-to-the-death fans with a 1:29 main event on a show they paid anywhere from $35 to $45 for. 

The other possibility is that Jeff was messed up, which was what people in TNA claimed Sunday night. In which case, why is Jeff Hardy in the main event? Years ago WWE fired Jeff because they were concerned with his behavior and he refused to go to rehab. TNA immediately signed him. Then when he kept fucking up they let him go, and WWE signed him back. Then he left WWE a second time, and a week later he got busted and CHARGED WITH MULTIPLE DRUGFELONIES. It's bad enough to bring a guy in who was having problems when working for the opposition (and believe me I am not defending WWE here because I thought it was wildly irresponsible when they did it as well), but to bring him in when he's facing possible jail time on drug charges? For fuck's sake. And it's not like they took a chance on him, like WWE did, and he actually was on his best behavior once he got there. Oh no. He had an incident just a few month back at another PPV where they were so concerned about his behavior backstage that they nearly pulled him from the show and stripped him of the title (and, of course, in the end they didn't, they just let him work, and then they gave the belt back to him again a month after he lost it to Mr. Anderson). HELLO? EARTH TOFUCKING IDIOTS. 

If this was legit, I have no sympathy for Dixie Carter whatsoever. In fact, I hold her even more responsible if this was real than if it was fake. If this was fake, they just did something ungodly stupid. If it was real, she continues to enable a guy with a real problem. She needs to get her fucking act together, like nine years ago. Not to mention that if he really was in no condition to perform, this was the best the creative team could come up with? A one-minute main event with a fluky finish? I mean, Jesus Christ, how long would it take you, the reader, to come up with something better, something that, I don't know, DOESN'T INVOLVE JEFFHARDY? I mean, think about this. Let's say he was under the influence of something. They actually thought - THEY ACTUALLY THOUGHT - that it would be better to PUT HIM IN THE RING FOR A ONE-MINUTE BULLSHIT MAIN EVENT than to, say, claim he got beat up by Kurt Angle and have Kurt replace him and do a 12-minute match with Sting. 

That decision right there, as a business owner, would cause me to swing low through this company in my sweet chariot, decapitating one member of creative after another with my flaming sword, so as to never see them again. Ideally everyone in the world would be employed, preferably in something they enjoyed doing, but for the love of God this company needs to die. Just die, Dixie can go back to being the friendly receptionist at Panda Headquarters in Texas, and if fate is such that there must be a "number-two" wrestling company in America, someone with a fucking brain will come by and pick up the pieces. And hopefully they can do it without rehiring everyone responsible for this Titanic of a company, unlike the current moronic braintrust who hired everyone responsible for killing WCW almost exactly ten years ago to the day. Over the years I have gotten one angry letter after another from the TNA diehards, trying to defend the utter bullshit nonsense that is Impact and the stupid decisions Dixie and her goofy crew make. This is what happens when you blindly support bullshit. You get this show, a show destined to be an entire chapter in a book someday.

This was a show that included probably the worst women's tag title match in the title's history, an Ultimate X match that fell far short of its standard, a first blood match that ended with FAKE BLOOD, and a hideous #1 contender's match that not only did not have a conclusive finish after about 15 minutes, but had the crowd split on whether to have the match continue or not. It didn't have the guy on the poster, but it had a drugged-up former world champion.

So what resulted from this mess? TNA lost a truckload of cash (it offered their on-demand service free for six months to anyone unlucky enough to order the show), Jeff Hardy is written off for their next set of tapings, and the company continued to look incompetent. Simply put, your vote for this being the worst wrestling PPV of all time is well-deserved.