Whatever Happened to Announcing a Full Pay-Per-View Card?

Woulda got more than crickets if it was announced prior
Photo Credit: WWE.com

It seems to be standard operating procedure nowadays for WWE only to announce between 67-80% of the matches for any given pay-per-view event beforehand. For example, Elimination Chamber *sigh* advertised four matches but then trotted out Jack Swagger against Justin Gabriel in an unadvertised and really, unbuilt United States Championship match. The Royal Rumble event announced the Rumble, two title matches and John Cena/Kane, but tacked on a Divas match and a Funkasaurus squash. Some might think of these as Easter eggs and bonuses, but those benefits are short-lived compared to how much of a detriment to the roster they end up being.

The biggest complaint about the younger guys is that they "can't draw", which to me is ridiculous because they don't get the proper time to prove they can "draw". The impromptu PPV match does nothing to help that perception because often times, it's not John Cena or anyone else they care about getting that SURPRISE booking. How much has Swagger or Gabriel even been mentioned on RAW or Smackdown, let alone appeared on either show? The sad thing is, Gabriel might have been featured more. It's crazy that a guy who holds a major title belt is ignored the way he is.

As much as some people want to think that having wrestling matches is the only thing that should draw crowd reactions, often times, the typical wrestling fan will not give nary a fuck about either competitor in the match if there's no story involved. This doesn't have to be a spider web woven in the intricately fucked up manner that the whole John Cena/Kane/Eve Torres/Zack Ryder thing has played out. The simplest story is "we have a wrestling match at the pay per view in a couple of weeks, and I want to win it", and often times, this can be enough to at least stoke some kind of coals for the match.

Obviously, it would be ideal to have a story for every match on every pay-per-view event. I'm not sure if this was the case for every old school PPV back in the day, but it sure felt like it. In the days of three months between events, it was a lot easier to build big for the main events early and then use the last month or so on Superstars or Wrestling Challenge to throw together some kind of simple "I WANNA BEAT YOU FOR THE MATCH PURSE" story build for the lower card ones. That being said, there's an awful lot of time wasted on recaps and puff pieces that I can't help but wonder something. If a third of that time was spent just announcing a Swagger/Gabriel match for EC and then reminding everyone it existed whether the crowd reactions would still have as tepid as they were.

Just announcing a match more than a week before a PPV can totally turn a reaction from "Who the fuck are these guys?" to "Hey, here's another match that I can do predictions on at my message board" and bam, there's some investment right there. It's minimal, but that minimal care shown might just end up sparking something for what might otherwise be a throwaway match. Purpose is important, even if it's superficial or simple in nature.