Bring back the KOTR?

[Slickster 0]

Seeing so many other people talking about the KOTR reminded me of an idea I had thought about a week or so ago.

 

Why not bring back the King of the Ring tournament as a way to boost house show attendance during the dry spell from June-August?

 

Starting right after One Night Stand, each brand could do a 16-man tournament, with most of the matches taking place at house shows (with the occasional match on SD! or RAW so TV-only fans can follow the tournament).

 

You post the brackets (with match dates and sites) for the tournament on WWE.com and mention the results as part of those 'live event recap' video packages they used to show on BottomLine/Afterburn.

 

The RAW-brand and SD!-brand finals could happen on TV, say, 2 weeks before SummerSlam. Then, you hold the interpromotional tournament final at the PPV itself (with the winner getting a title shot at Unforgiven/No Mercy).

 

What does this accomplish?

-Builds interest in house shows by making them relevant to storylines

-Can be used to elevate talent

-Automatically books the ME for the Sept/Oct PPV (traditionally poor draws), which could boost fan interest.

 

(This could easily be done, as each brand would have to do only 14 tournament matches in 2 months. RAW and SD! each run 3 shows per week.)

 

Your thoughts?

[Scroby 0]

If anything it should be the other interbrand match ppv. Why it was cancelled I have no clue, I always found it to be a good idea until they started doing nothing with the winner of the tournaments.

[spman 0]

Eh, KOTR was almost always consistantly the worst show of every year, so it's probobly best it stay gone.

[Guest LooneyTune]

I think Armageddon wins the award for worst show of the year every year because it's a lazy spell for booking. KOTR, when done right, could be good. The problem is, the tournament booking sometimes makes no sense.

 

1995 Roster was fucked up to begin with, with eliminations of star power of The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in the 1st Round, leaving Mabel, the Roadie, and Savio Vega to go for the crown.

 

1997 was just a complete mess period.

 

1999 BILLY GUNN went over when people had no interest in him for anything higher than the midcard tag team.

 

2000 had one of the best fields... so they eliminate Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit in Round 1 and advance Rikishi and Crash Holly.

 

WWE also needs to make the tournament 3 rounds on PPV, otherwise it means nothing. Wrestling twice isn't that hard when matches barely go 7 minutes. When Bret Hart won in 1993, he wrestled 3 matches that combined nearly 50 minutes. Owen Hart wrestled three hard fought matches in 1994, and since then, it's either been horrible fields or 2 rounds on PPV.

[JoeDirt 0]

I say bring in back in 2006. Keep the PPV schedule as is now, just put KOTR where the ECW PPV is this year. I really don't see how one more joint-brand PPV could hurt, especially one with history like King of the Ring. Arguments like "well, it's been bad in the past" simply don't work for me. Why not bring in back in June 2006? Just do a final four on the PPV, leaving room for plenty of other matches to draw buys. Also, doing a tournament on TV makes for easy booking and tying together of angles. Seems like a good idea to me.

[tbondrage99 0]

I agree that it should come back and should be three rounds a night. I thought that was the whole point of it in the first place, the fact that the winner would have to beat three people in one night. I also think that at the last KOTR where the winner got a title shot at Summer Slam was a great idea too. It opened up the tournament where I thought that it could mean more, and not have some midcarder no one cares about winning. It could be used where all the major players are in it and are looking for the win to get the title shot, just like the Royal Rumble does for Wrestlemania.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

If anything it should be the other interbrand match ppv. Why it was cancelled I have no clue, I always found it to be a good idea until they started doing nothing with the winner of the tournaments.

The 2002 KOTR PPV got, for that time, what was considered a disappointing buy rate. The tournament got the blame for it, because it was decided that it couldn't possibly have been the fault of the Triple H v Undertaker main event. So, the tournament got scrapped for good.

[Enigma 0]

I was kind of upset that they cancelled King of the Ring right after coming up with the ingenius stipulation that the winner got a title shot at Summerslam.

[Epic Reine 0]

2000 had one of the best fields... so they eliminate Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit in Round 1 and advance Rikishi and Crash Holly.

Huh? Jericho, Guerrero, and Benout ALL made it to the semi-finals. They weren't eliminated in the first round.

 

With the exception of '95 and '99, I've always liked the KOTR, it's just the WWE has to really push the winner and actually do something with him. Like in 1998, Shamrock one and they didn't absoutley NOTHING for him to bosst his career, ditto for Gunn though the crowd didn't buy him to begin with. They should have someone win who can actually have an impact in pro wrestling's future.

[Precious Roy 0]

I've always loved the idea of annual tournaments in pro-wrestling, such as the Crocket Cup, J Cup, Championship Carnival etc. I dug the KOTR, even if some of the booking was retarded and some of the matches weren't great, it was always an event that piqued my interest, which is more than I can say for all of these generic PPVs the WWE produces now. Bring it back, and do it right! 3 rounds on PPV, and no "experiments" like Mabel and Billy Gunn! Treat it like you treat winning the Rumble or like you used to treat the IC title. Winning the KOTR should be a major accomplishment.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

2000 had one of the best fields... so they eliminate Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit in Round 1 and advance Rikishi and Crash Holly.

Huh? Jericho, Guerrero, and Benout ALL made it to the semi-finals. They weren't eliminated in the first round.

 

They didn't make it to the semi-finals, just the quarter finals.

[tbondrage99 0]

I think if they bring it back like it should certinally be three rounds in one night, like I said before, and if the Summer Slam main Event was on the line they should have 8 main eventers or guys just on the brink of main eventer that people could see there. It shouldnt be to hard to scrape up 4 guys from each show. For Raw, Jericho, Benoit, Orton & Edge and for Smackdown, Undertaker, Eddie, Booker & Angle. Its would be so easy to pull this off that its laughable.

[Guest LooneyTune]

I don't count Qualifying Rounds as 1st Rounds. They were eliminated in the PPV's 1st Round of the One Night Tournament. Only when it's two rounds is it considered Semi-Finals and Finals.

[razazteca 0]

Why bring it back only to have somebody like Tomko or Orlando Jordan win the tourny by 2 DQ decisions?

[Guest news_gimmick]

For me it was always one of my favorite events, I've always enjoyed wrestling tournaments. Too bad it never was one of WWE's favorite events, because they almost always halfassed the execution and booking of it(with exception to the first two). They could've developed so many more stars off of those tournaments than they actually did. It definately would work nowadays and be a special event with interaction between the two brands, but I wouldn't get your hopes up for it ever because booking simple tournament is too much for WWE to handle. I think everyone here could book a better tournament then the hack writing staff.

[tbondrage99 0]

Why bring it back only to have somebody like Tomko or Orlando Jordan win the tourny by 2 DQ decisions?

Because that hopefully wouldnt happen.

[reign 0]

I want the KOTR back but I don't want the winner to get a title shot at SS for a few reasons:

 

1. It's one and done. Unless the one time match of the KOTR vs. the champ produces a hot fued then nothing becomes of it and if the KOTR loses the he may look worthless.

 

2. Even if say Chris Jericho won and faces HHH at SS...it would have almost no build up and could put unnessary breaks on another hot fued.

 

3. It would become Royal Rumble-like in it's predictablility. We'd know who was winning weeks prior to the event even happening.

 

Now all three of these could happen maybe one year but not every year. Bret and Owen acted like royalty. It didn't just mean one title shot, it meant having the prestiege to challenge anyone at any time because in one single night you defeated the 3 best in the WWE.

[Vyce 0]

If it was brought back, I wouldn't want it in the regular single-elimination style - I'd want it set up in "block" format, with the wrestlers trying to earn points via wins, and of course the two top point earners in each block make it to the semi-finals. Ending with the winners of each block fighting one another for the crown.

 

They could still make it brand vs. brand; just have one brand feature one block, with the second brand featuring the other. All leading up to, naturally, a brand vs. brand match.

 

Basically, I'd like to see the tourneys done like they are in Japan. The WWE audience might be a little uncertain about it, at first, but if the matches were booked carefully, I think interest in the matches could increase as time goes by, and they'd have weeks of material to work with leading up to whatever PPV has the semis / finals.

[tbondrage99 0]

If it was brought back, I wouldn't want it in the regular single-elimination style - I'd want it set up in "block" format, with the wrestlers trying to earn points via wins, and of course the two top point earners in each block make it to the semi-finals. Ending with the winners of each block fighting one another for the crown.

 

They could still make it brand vs. brand; just have one brand feature one block, with the second brand featuring the other. All leading up to, naturally, a brand vs. brand match.

 

Basically, I'd like to see the tourneys done like they are in Japan. The WWE audience might be a little uncertain about it, at first, but if the matches were booked carefully, I think interest in the matches could increase as time goes by, and they'd have weeks of material to work with leading up to whatever PPV has the semis / finals.

I really cant see that working for the WWE at all.

[Scroby 0]

The 2002 KOTR PPV got, for that time, what was considered a disappointing buy rate. The tournament got the blame for it, because it was decided that it couldn't possibly have been the fault of the Triple H v Undertaker main event. So, the tournament got scrapped for good.

 

That was the year Lesner won the tournament right? I can't remember. I find it funny that they blame the main event for the low buyrate and not the tournament itself, so since two wrestlers can't pull in a decent buyrate, they stop the actual tournament which should be the show itself.

[CBright7831 0]

Eh, KOTR was almost always consistantly the worst show of every year, so it's probobly best it stay gone.

I was about to say, KOTR wasn't exactly the best.

[Myxamatosis 0]

Are we in need of nostalgia that much that we'd want to bring back the fuckin' King of the Ring?

[Guest Brian]

If it was brought back, I wouldn't want it in the regular single-elimination style - I'd want it set up in "block" format, with the wrestlers trying to earn points via wins, and of course the two top point earners in each block make it to the semi-finals. Ending with the winners of each block fighting one another for the crown.

 

They could still make it brand vs. brand; just have one brand feature one block, with the second brand featuring the other. All leading up to, naturally, a brand vs. brand match.

 

Basically, I'd like to see the tourneys done like they are in Japan. The WWE audience might be a little uncertain about it, at first, but if the matches were booked carefully, I think interest in the matches could increase as time goes by, and they'd have weeks of material to work with leading up to whatever PPV has the semis / finals.

I've always wanted to run a cruiserweight tournament like that, putting a couple of marquee matches on TV and putting the rest on house shows, thus giving fans some pay-off. Also, you could afford to give someone a little bit of a rub by beating one of the top guys who could still feasibly win a spot in the semi-ginals via points. I think given the right amount of focus and selling by the announcers, plus the amount of interest it could drive into house shows, it would be a great opportunity. You could leave SmackDown with a cliffhanger as to the point leader on one side, and conclude it on a house show.

[Dangerous A 0]

I also favor the Champion Carnival/G-1 Climax format of "block" tournament. You could have the top 2 point getters from the Raw and SD blocks face off to rep their block and then the finals would be the winner of the Raw block vs. winner of the SD block= winner of KOTR gets title shot at Summerslam.

 

With help from graphics being shown on TV showing who has how many points and where standings are, I see something fresh that WWE needs to capatilize on. Laurinitis has experience with this format, he should interject IMO. Of course, this means nothing in today's current climate.

[SuperJerk 0]

On the one hand, I like the idea of having a way to get a potential main eventer over without resorting to throwing a Wordl title on them.

 

On the other hand, the only person who's career that winning KOTR ever really helped was Steve Austin.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I also favor the Champion Carnival/G-1 Climax format of "block" tournament. You could have the top 2 point getters from the Raw and SD blocks face off to rep their block and then the finals would be the winner of the Raw block vs. winner of the SD block= winner of KOTR gets title shot at Summerslam.

 

With help from graphics being shown on TV showing who has how many points and where standings are, I see something fresh that WWE needs to capatilize on. Laurinitis has experience with this format, he should interject IMO. Of course, this means nothing in today's current climate.

You can do that for the qualifying rounds easily enough, but you don't have enough rounds for the single-elimination tournament. Part of the problem with KOTR is that they far too often only had 2 Rounds on the PPV instead of 3. The tournament should dominate the show. The big appeal of tournaments is in that there are a number of ways it can unfold even if there is a big favourite to win, like in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. It is harder to predict, and fans like that.

[Precious Roy 0]

On the other hand, the only person who's career that winning KOTR ever really helped was Steve Austin.

 

Nah, that's not true. It helped solidify Owen Hart after his win over Bret at ManiaX, Kurt Angle who was still in his rookie year and got to brag about winning four matches in one night along with all his other accomplishments, and HHH, who finally started being taken seriously around that time, which lay the groundwork for his accociation with HBK being accepted by the fans.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Edge also went from midcard tag team to upper-midcard IC Title contender... and that's where he's been since.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

It did alot for Brock Lesnar.

[SuperJerk 0]

On the other hand, the only person who's career that winning KOTR ever really helped was Steve Austin.

 

Nah, that's not true. It helped solidify Owen Hart after his win over Bret at ManiaX, Kurt Angle who was still in his rookie year and got to brag about winning four matches in one night along with all his other accomplishments, and HHH, who finally started being taken seriously around that time, which lay the groundwork for his accociation with HBK being accepted by the fans.

Nothing against Owen, because he was an amazing wrestler and very talented, but his career never really took off to the point where he was ever considered a credible main eventer. His going over Bret at WM10 did more for him than his KOTR win did.

 

Winning KOTR didn't do shit for HHH, and the only thing winning KOTR did for Brock was give them an excuse to give him a title shot at Summerslam so The Rock could put him over.