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New Generic WWE PPV Names Are No Worse Than Before

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Anywhere you go online, you will see people complaining that the new names WWE has chosen for their non “Big 4” PPV events are stupid. The new generic crop of names includes May’s upcoming Payback, June’s Battleground and the newest show name, the horribly panned Fastlane. Come to think of it, those are the only three “generic” names on the WWE PPV calendar. The rest are all of the traditional big name shows and silly gimmick shows.

Let’s go back to the Attitude Era and look at the names of the PPV events they used in 2000, the year that many consider to be one of the better years of WWE pay-per-view.

No Way Out:
After the Royal Rumble event, the show that bridged the gap before WrestleMania 2000 was called No Way Out, a name that made it all the way through 2009 (and came back in 2012 for a show in which the name actually made sense). It doesn’t get more generic than No Way Out. They did a couple cage matches (2000’s version had a Hell in a Cell match, so the name started out making sense) and before they gave up and named the show after the gimmick match, there were a few years that featured Elimination Chamber matches.

Backlash:
The show following WrestleMania was aptly titled Backlash, but only a few of the 11 events (including 1999) actually were centered around following up on what happened the previous month at The Show of Shows.

Judgment Day:
Another event that died in 2009, Judgment Day was about as generic as it gets. It sounds deep, dark and demonic, but there’s no meaning tied to it. The original one from 1998 was named for the main event, featuring Kane vs. The Undertaker wrestling for special guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin’s vacated WWF Championship. Vince McMahon was forcing Austin to make a judgment and to count one man down to make the other the champion, otherwise he would be judged by the owner and fired. He didn’t do his job and did end up getting fired, which was the first time Vince uttered the iconic phrase with his maniacal delivery. None of the other 10 events of the same name focused on judgment being laid down.

Fully Loaded:
They only did this one three times. It is as generic a name as you are going to find anywhere. They did call the strap match between Triple H and The Rock from the second one a “Fully Loaded” strap match, but that’s really pushing it.

Unforgiven:
The first one in 1998 had the original Inferno match between Undertaker and Kane. This makes sense because The Undertaker was not forgiven by Kane and Paul Bearer for burning down their childhood home and killing their mother as well as Undertaker’s father (remember when that was their storyline canon?) The other 10 Unforgiven shows? Just a boring, generic name.

No Mercy:
It’s actually pretty tough to complain about this one. The first 6 shows (7 if you count the one they did as a UK only show) had different versions of No DQ matches as the main event. In fact, the only show that had a main event that didn’t feature a gimmick match in which there were no disqualifications was in 2005 when Eddie Guerrero took on Batista for the World Title, and the name was actually pretty fitting for that show, since they were “friends” but promised that they wouldn’t take mercy on each other because of it.

Armageddon:
Well it was the last PPV of the year, so at least it makes sense in that respect.

The big point here is that the “stupid, generic” names that WWE has used recently, including the current Fastlane (which makes sense because by that point we are in the fast lane to WrestleMania), Payback (which is essentially just a synonym of Backlash if you think about it) and Battleground shows as well as the short-lived Over The Limit are no worse than some of the show names from the past. I would rather have “generic” “filler” show names rather than match-specific names like the Hell in a Cell or TLC shows. Those are borderline insulting.

Nicholas A. Marsico is a featured pro wrestling writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter!

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