Underwhelming cards on paper but exceeded expectations.

[agent817]

Two of my primary examples of this are Wrestlemania Backlash and Hell in a Cell from this year. Prior to these shows happening, I had little care about these shows. When I watched them, however, they turned out to be better than expected. Granted, I didn't watch Wrestlemania Backlash when it happened (it was on Mother's Day, for crying out loud!; I wasn't about to skip on some special day with my mom for a wrestling show), but I had read that it was a good show. I then watched it and it lived up to its reputation. Then you had Hell in a Cell, which had an underwhelming card as well. There was no world title match. Hell, there was only one Smackdown match on the entire show. But it turned out to be a good show.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. What are some examples of a show that looks bad (or mediocre, at best) on paper but then turned out to be good?

[Deleted]

SummerSlam this year was chock full of matches that have been done to death, but was a great show.

[fg]

SSeries 2004.

[The Rick Jericho]

Has to be Canadian Stampede.

HHH vs. Mankind. Did not see strong workrate from either guys yet in their WWE runs at this point.

Sasuke vs. Taka. Both were relative unknowns to the american audience. Absolutely zero expectations.

Undertaker vs. Vader. Undertaker didn't bring his workrate up until he feuded with Bret and Shawn later in the year. Vader was just working a stiff style.

10 man tag. Goldust. Shamrock. Anvil. Pillman. Lots of guys who weren't known as workers. It was up to Bret and Steve to carry the match.

[Jindrak Mark]

Night 1 of Wrestlemania this year. Most were expecting a few punches and a stunner at most but we got an actual Austin match. The Logan Paul tag match was way better than anyone could possibly have expected. Becky/Bianca was expected to be good but even that overdelivered and is arguably the greatest women's match in company history. Cody/Seth could have easily been all about the Cody pop and Seth loses in 5 minutes due to the surprise factor but they had an actual great match. Drew v Corbin and Charlotte v Ronda were decent which is probably also above what a lot of people predicted from those going in.

Wrestlemania 23 too. I remember not looking forward to it too much outside of Cena/Michaels and MITB. It's only with hindsight we know Batista and Undertaker have great chemistry. At the time there was a genuine fear that match would suck. Batista was having terrible match after terrible match since returning from injury and Taker isn't exactly going to carry deadwood to a classic. It was a huge shock when they put on a MOTYC. Benoit v MVP was seen as a waste of Benoit. MVP wasn't really over yet and had little or no good matches under his belt. They had a surprisingly good match though and it served as like a launching pad for MVP over the next year or so. I had no interest in the battle of the billionaires thing leading to the show but the overall package ended up being entertaining largely due to Austin. Even Kane v Khali wasn't the disaster it could have been.

[MolotovMocktail]

Wrestlemania 31. Aside from Sting vs. HHH and the ladder match, nothing to really catch your eye, and awful buildup going in. It was my first live Wrestlemania, so I was just hoping it wouldn't be the worst in history, now I consider it to be the best.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Aug 28, 2022 13:11:58 GMT -5 MolotovMocktail said:

Wrestlemania 31. Aside from Sting vs. HHH and the ladder match, nothing to really catch your eye, and awful buildup going in. It was my first live Wrestlemania, so I was just hoping it wouldn't be the worst in history, now I consider it to be the best.

It’s sort of poetic that the first and last Brock/Roman matches had truly awful builds and then both ended up being really fun hoss fights.

[thecrusherwi]

Great American Bash 1996 looks like throwaway card on paper, but it’s one of the best shows of the Bischoff Era of WCW. The card doesn’t look like much, but at the time each match had a good build and the tension of The Outsiders presence hung over everything.

[Aceorton]

The 1993 King of the Ring. Could have easily been a disaster with Yoko vs. Hogan as the main event title match, but they placed that in the middle of the card and wisely put the bigger focus on Bret instead with three awesome matches (vs. Razor, Perfect and Bigelow). The stuff that was the most meh (Mr. Hughes and Duggan in the tournament, eight-man tag) was kept pretty short, and even Tatanka-Luger and Crush-HBK, which didn't look great on paper, had some interesting twists.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Aug 28, 2022 13:11:58 GMT -5 MolotovMocktail said:

Wrestlemania 31. Aside from Sting vs. HHH and the ladder match, nothing to really catch your eye, and awful buildup going in. It was my first live Wrestlemania, so I was just hoping it wouldn't be the worst in history, now I consider it to be the best.

This four hour show has under 90 minutes of wrestling and still rules

[mcmahonfan85]

i forget if it was WrestleMania 21 or 22, but one of them everyone on here was crapping all over it heading into the show because of the card and build for it, and then everyone spent all admitting they had to eat crow because the show was great

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

WWE Backlash 2016 was the first SD exclusive show of the new brand split for Smackdown, and despite looking barren as hell on paper, the fact that the fans actually got what they wanted with all the title matches and AJ vs. Ambrose delivering in the main meant for an enjoyable show.

[fg]

Aug 28, 2022 21:54:15 GMT -5 mcmahonfan85 said:

i forget if it was WrestleMania 21 or 22, but one of them everyone on here was crapping all over it heading into the show because of the card and build for it, and then everyone spent all admitting they had to eat crow because the show was great

I think it was WM22. That was one of the least anticipated WMs in years at that point.

WM21 however was the opposite but there were people online who didn’t want John Cena as champ and I think they said he was going to fail.

[Triangle Lancer]

Aug 30, 2022 9:59:15 GMT -5 fg said:

Aug 28, 2022 21:54:15 GMT -5 mcmahonfan85 said:

i forget if it was WrestleMania 21 or 22, but one of them everyone on here was crapping all over it heading into the show because of the card and build for it, and then everyone spent all admitting they had to eat crow because the show was great

I think it was WM22. That was one of the least anticipated WMs in years at that point.

WM21 however was the opposite but there were people online who didn’t want John Cena as champ and I think they said he was going to fail.

I was one that looked at 22 kinda blah.
Yet I convinced a co-worker to buy a ticket and he had a great time.
(Honestly I remember that thread and the biggest pop was "WHAAAAA!!!OMGZ!!!!1!1! CM PUNK!!!!!1!11!")

[wildojinx]

Vengeance 2003 comes to mind, even stuff that sounds disastrous on paper like Billy Gunn vs Jamie Noble or Zack Gowen vs Vince McMahon turned out to be good.

[Cyno]

AEW has done a lot of these in its brief existence. Not even with a couple of the major shows, but random Dynamites sounded mediocre as hell on paper but overdelivered.

[häšhtå.gdālėÿ]

Pretty much every single Black and Gold Takeover card people wrote off for weak looking cards stole the weekend. I swear it happened multiple times.

[Starshine]

Wrestlemania 31. I went to that live, and had pretty much bottomed out my expectations due to the piss-poor build up, but it was a super fun show.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

I wouldn't say it was an underwhelming card, actually it looked pretty decent, but Extreme Rules 2012. I was looking forward to seeing the return of Brock Lesnar, quite happy to watch the Rhodes and Show table match, the rest of the card looked ok. Damn, did that show deliver, and then some. Not a bad match on the show, some great booking, and the main event was just phenomenal.

The last truly great PPV that I watched before losing interest in the product later that year.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Sept 8, 2022 3:38:02 GMT -5 David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 said:

I wouldn't say it was an underwhelming card, actually it looked pretty decent, but Extreme Rules 2012. I was looking forward to seeing the return of Brock Lesnar, quite happy to watch the Rhodes and Show table match, the rest of the card looked ok. Damn, did that show deliver, and then some. Not a bad match on the show, some great booking, and the main event was just phenomenal.

The last truly great PPV that I watched before losing interest in the product later that year.

One of the best B shows in history. Stupidly good even before the main event