Matt O’Brien writes and maintains the Wrestleview.com poll every two weeks.
Always on the forefront with writing out wrestling storylines, the pay per view is the event a company should always be building towards. They build their feuds up and then blow them off at an event that will earn them money. Pay per view has changed a lot since professional wrestling began using the concept of pay per view. While it was used by the WWF at the time, they didn’t even have the first WrestleMania on per vie w. By the end of the decade it was used more and more, yet it was not until 1995 when both WCW and WWF were hosting monthly pay per view events. ECW was also running several pay per views, and there was always the occasional show here and there from other companies. Even with ECW and WCW gone, WWE is not the only company with regular pay per views. TNA has stepped up into the pay per view market, as has Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate USA. Looking at the more prominent companies running pay per view out of the United States, we asked you who has the best pay per views. Over the course of two weeks, over 2,700 votes were cast. The results are as follows:
Which organization consistently has the best pay per views?
WWE 68% (1,868 votes)
Ring of Honor 16% (444 votes)
TNA 12% (328 votes)
Dragon Gate USA 5% (125 votes)
Total votes casted: 2,765
Over 1,800 of the votes cast were for WWE. For over twenty-five years WWE has been doing pay per views. When putting on a show, there is just no other company that is better. From the set designs to the video packages to the matches, they are the complete package. There is just no other company like WWE. They have had their share of shows that have bombed, but at this time there is no other organization that can do pay per view as well as they can.
Coming in at second place was Ring of Honor. One critique of WWE is that they do not always focus on wrestling. May wrestling fans see ROH as the company that fills a hole. If you look at a wrestling pay per view as a picnic, ROH doesn’t have the nicest blanket, the extravagant basket, and may have not even brought a lot of food, but they bring the meat, which is all some people care about. They have also tapped into the iPPV. For a lesser cost, many fans feel they get more for their money when they watch an ROH show.
This question was posted soon after the TNA Victory Road show where the main event flopped and the show ended nearly thirty minutes early. The bad taste that it left in the mouth of the audience hurt its standing in this poll. Every company has its share of bad shows which is why the poll asked which organization has the best shows consistently. Nevertheless, TNA has their loyal following and a lot of fans love having an accessible alternative to WWE. Even though they came in third place, they still walked away with twelve percent of the votes.
Like ROH and TNA, Dragon Gate USA offers something different than the usual WWE dish. With WWE having been so far and away the top company for so long, it is easy to forget their way of doing things is not the only way. Pay per view in general is a changing concept that will eventually go the way of eight-track tapes and VCRs as a yesteryear concept. The question is what comes next.
Thanks to all who participated and be sure to cast your vote in the latest poll asking what wrestling personality you would most like to see write an autobiography!
Matt O’Brien
Columnist, Wrestleview.com
mattman5436@yahoo.com