Not every big match can be saved for the biggest show and sometimes you just need to throw the fans that bought a ticket to Battleground a bone. These are 10 times huge WWE matches took place on B-level pay per views!
00:00 - Start
01:07 - Honourable Mention
01:37 - 10
02:32 - 9
03:27 - 8
04:35 - 7
05:37 - 6
06:24 - 5
07:26 - 4
08:25 - 3
09:17 - 2
10:21 - 1
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00:00 - Start
01:07 - Honourable Mention
01:37 - 10
02:32 - 9
03:27 - 8
04:35 - 7
05:37 - 6
06:24 - 5
07:26 - 4
08:25 - 3
09:17 - 2
10:21 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
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SportsTranscript
00:00The Big Four, Mania, The Rumble, SummerSlam, and also Survivor Series, I guess, the homes
00:06of WWE's biggest matches every year.
00:09Most of the time.
00:10Sometimes WWE would throw a bone to the fans that bought tickets for the pay-per-views
00:14that would land on a month other than January, April, August, and November, and book one
00:18of the biggest matches possible.
00:20WWE has scaled back their amount of pay-per-views, or premium live events, in recent years, and
00:25at least since the Triple H takeover, pretty much all of them have had a monumental main
00:29event.
00:30Brock vs. Cody, Roman vs. Sami, shows have been worth watching, but allow us to cast
00:35ourselves back to a time when the biggest matches were reserved for the biggest shows
00:39and anything else, well that was just a happy surprise.
00:42I'm Tempest Haling from PartsFunKnown, and these are 10 HUGE WWE MATCHES THAT TOOK PLACE
00:47ON B-LEVEL PAY-PER-VIEWS.
00:48But before we get on with our list, make sure of course that you like this video and subscribe
00:52to PartsFunKnown.
00:53We're trying to get to 250,000 subscribers, and when we do, we will be doing a full, live
00:59stream playing through a 4-person MyGM mode in WWE 2K23, so make sure you subscribe today.
01:07Honorable Mention, John Cena vs. CM Punk, Money in the Bank 2011.
01:11Certainly one of the biggest matches to ever take place outside of WWE's big four pay-per-views,
01:16and had this list been made a decade ago, this certainly would have qualified, but in
01:20WWE 2K23, Money in the Bank has sort of unofficially become a WWE Big Five pay-per-view, graduating
01:26from B-Show status.
01:27Still, worth shouting out, as it is, well, one of the biggest WWE matches ever, and one
01:33of the main reasons Money in the Bank has grown as a format like it has.
01:37Number 10, Seth Rollins vs. Sting, Night of Champions 2015.
01:41Sting's WWE run is not terribly well regarded outside of his debut.
01:45Never winning on pay-per-views certainly plays a role in that, and half of that equation
01:49came at Night of Champions 2015.
01:51Seth Rollins was set to receive his statue for defeating John Cena, enshrining him as
01:55the beacon that the Wade Barrett's, Rusev's, and Bray Wyatt's of the world could aspire
02:00to be.
02:01Only when the curtain was raised, Seth found that his statue looked more like a statue
02:04of Sting, a statue that would move, and also was made of flesh.
02:08Kidding aside, this was a shocking moment, as a Night of Champions title match between
02:11Seth Rollins and Sting seemed like a pretty monumental deal, as this was going to be the
02:15first time that Sting actually got to wrestle any of the young stars in WWE, and for the
02:20top prize in the company no less.
02:22Unfortunately, we all know how that match went.
02:24Sting got hurt real bad and would be kept out of the ring for nearly six years.
02:28Just goes to show that not all of the matches on this list will have panned out the way
02:31we had hoped.
02:32Number 9, The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan, No Way Out 2003.
02:37Speaking of matches that didn't end up being nearly as good as fans would have liked them
02:40to be, The Rock and Hulk Hogan's match at WrestleMania 18 is one of the great matches
02:45in WrestleMania history, with one of the craziest crowd responses in all of WWE history.
02:50Their rematch at No Way Out 2003 is butt.
02:53A big heaping pile of butt.
02:56Sorry Montreal, Toronto is just better than you.
02:58The pay-per-view may have been sold on the back of the hype of their first match, but
03:02in this case, those who bought the pay-per-view were swindled because that first match sure
03:06didn't end with a screwjob finish involving crooked referee Sylvian Gragne.
03:11We compare a lot of sequels in wrestling to films like The Dark Knight or the Empire
03:14Strikes Back or The Godfather Part 2, but this one, this was the Independence Day resurgence
03:19of wrestling sequels.
03:21The Pacific Rim Uprising of wrestling sequels.
03:24The Blues Brothers 2000 of wrestling sequels.
03:27The Number 8, Triple H vs. Dean Ambrose, Roadblock 2016.
03:31Speaking of Toronto being better than Montreal, now finally onto some matches that actually
03:36lived up to the hype.
03:37During the dark days of over-pushed, under-performing WrestleMania main eventer Roman Reigns, WWE
03:43fans were clamoring for that spot to instead be filled by Dean Ambrose, with Adam's favorite
03:48match, Triple H vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 32, being the key example of a match better
03:52suited for Dean to be in.
03:54As such, WWE gave fans what they wanted at Roadblock in Toronto, and sure enough, it
03:58proved to be a much better match than what we ended up getting at WrestleMania.
04:02Triple H wasn't having many singles matches at the time, so one against Dean Ambrose was
04:06a big deal, and Roadblock wasn't even a pay-per-view, it was just a WWE Network special.
04:11Practically a house show with cameras, I would know, I was there, and no matter what
04:16kind of show it was, this was a match befitting of the biggest stage possible, an incredibly
04:21dynamic WWE Championship match that still stands as one of Triple H's best straight
04:26singles matches.
04:27The only time this match ever happened, which is a shame, because this is one WWE could
04:33have easily run back.
04:35Number 7, Kurt Angle vs. The Undertaker, No Way Out 2006.
04:39You know, you might not think that an undead witch-man and an Olympic gold medalist would
04:43be two wrestling characters that would mesh perfectly together, but if you thought that,
04:46you're a stupid fool idiot baby, because obviously those two wrestlers would be The
04:50Undertaker and Kurt Angle.
04:52Considering that this show was one month before WrestleMania 22, and this match would be in
04:56considerable contention to main event WrestleMania had it been part of the show, it's kind of
05:00wild that this is just a one-off title defense for Kurt Angle on No Way Out of all shows.
05:05And what a match it is.
05:07This was maybe the best pay-per-view match in all of 2006 for WWE, really depends on
05:11how much you like Edge and Cena and TLC, or the sight of Vince McMahon's head inside Big
05:16Show's asshole.
05:17And that extends to No Way Out as well, this was maybe the best match in the show's history
05:21if you ignore all the matches that are better than this one.
05:23It didn't matter if it was 2000, 2002, 2006, if Angle and Scary Terry were in the ring together,
05:30they had chemistry.
05:32Imagine if this was a WrestleMania match, the streak truly suffers for not having Kurt
05:36be a part of it.
05:42When The Rock returned to WWE in 2011, most probably would have expected that all of his
05:47matches would have been reserved for the biggest pay-per-views imaginable.
05:50His return match was at Survivor Series, then he wouldn't wrestle again until the grandest
05:54false advertisement of all time, and then again almost 10 months later at the Royal
05:57Rumble when he won the WWE title from CM Punk, ending his 434-day reign as champion.
06:03However, I reckon the fine fans in New Orleans sure didn't expect that when they bought
06:07their tickets for Elimination Chamber, that they would be seeing just The Rock's fourth
06:11match since 2004.
06:13Sure enough, CM Punk's rematch took place here, at the annual pit stop on the road to
06:17WrestleMania, and it was pretty good.
06:19Yeah, it was pretty, pretty, pretty fine.
06:29No, I don't really get this Evolution song.
06:32Evolution isn't really a mystery, is it?
06:34We've got a lot of proof that it has happened, what it is, why it happens.
06:38Where's the mystery, Lemmy?
06:39Where is the mystery?
06:40Anyway, following The Shield's 2014 babyface turn, they didn't have a terrible amount
06:45of heel forces to oppose them.
06:47They had already squared off with the Wyatt Family, and they were already starting to
06:50go their separate ways, so who should this young trio of future stars turn their attention
06:54to but three of the top stars of the prior decade?
06:57The Shield vs. Evolution sounded like one of those dream matches that would never be
07:01possible, but with Batista's return to WWE in 2014, all of a sudden we had all the makings
07:07of maybe the biggest six-man tag match in WWE history at Extreme Rules and Payback 2014.
07:13Extreme Rules was the better match of the two, even if the Payback match holds a special
07:16place in my heart because of Blue Tista, the most unserious man of all time, but both cases
07:21were WWE putting on a colossal main event match for a pair of usually neglected pay-per-views.
07:27Roman Reigns vs. John Cena, No Mercy 2017
07:30It really came out of nowhere in October 2017 when the top dog of the reality era of WWE,
07:35Roman Reigns, was all of a sudden set to face the face that runs the place for the prior
07:4012 years, John Cena, and that match wasn't like the main event of WrestleMania.
07:44Hell, it wasn't even the main event of this show, and the only match on this list not
07:49to main event the pay-per-view that it was on.
07:51No Mercy 2017 was one B pay-per-view that WWE decided to try exceptionally hard on,
07:56putting on a pair of huge matches that otherwise would probably have fit right in among the
08:00biggest shows of the year in this match and Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman.
08:04But where Lesnar and Strowman fell short of the audience's expectations, Roman and Cena
08:08delivered, having a very fun match with Cena more or less passing the torch to his struggling
08:13successor.
08:14Their next match wouldn't be until Summerslam 2021, which seems like a more appropriate
08:18setting for such a clash, but for a middle-of-the-card match on a B show, it quite literally does
08:23not get much bigger than this.
08:253.
08:26John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar, Extreme Rules 2012
08:29Huge returns on the night after WrestleMania are sometimes funny because if it is a huge
08:34star, fans might expect that star to then wait to wrestle at like, Summerslam or the
08:38next available major show, but in the case of Brock Lesnar in 2012, he jumped right in
08:43to wrestle the biggest star in WWE, John Cena, at Extreme Rules.
08:47Fresh off being the biggest box office draw in the prior four years in all of combat sports,
08:52Brock walked into a WWE B-Show and popped a very good buy rate because he was a killer,
08:57you see, one who would throw his entire body at John Cena and then elbow him in the head
09:01until funny red liquid poured out.
09:03This was the biggest match WWE could book at the time, and with a Lesnar win, they would
09:07print money for the next 18 months as people would try and beat the unbeatable former UFC
09:12champion, and for reasons completely my own, I'm going to choose not to talk about what
09:16happened next.
09:172.
09:18CM Punk vs. Triple H, Night of Champions 2011
09:21The summer of Punk in 2011 didn't lead to very many wins on pay-per-view for Punk immediately
09:25after Money in the Bank, in fact he was pinned on the next four straight, and the most prolific
09:30case of this came at Night of Champions of all places, where after having had enough
09:33of Punk's anti-authority shtick, Triple H came out of semi-retirement, beat him, and
09:38then went back into retirement.
09:40CM Punk vs. Triple H is a massive match on paper, and honestly the stretch of time that
09:44came after this match very much helped make this rivalry much more mythical than it ever
09:49was on screen, but in 2011 when Punk was WWE's hottest star in quite a long while, this still
09:54felt like a match big enough for a Survivor Series or Royal Rumble or WrestleMania showdown.
09:59As a match, it's alright, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors and R-Truth and Miz and
10:03Kevin Nash, far too much for a match built on years of resentment and deep-seated personal
10:07animosity if you ask me.
10:08Was it too early to have Triple H lose and have to resign as figurehead of WWE?
10:12Maybe, but he did that like a month later anyway, so why wouldn't you just wait and
10:16have Punk beat him and not kill his momentum?
10:18Oh, the questions of the universe we will never have answered.
10:21And number one, Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose, Battleground 2016.
10:28We will never get the Shield Triple Threat match in a main event of WrestleMania.
10:32I know you can never say never, but I don't think anyone has found the key to that forbidden
10:35door.
10:36As it stands, the only time we have ever gotten a Triple Threat match between the three members
10:40of this great faction outside of their three-way in FCW, hashtag fact check, was in the main
10:45event of Battleground 2016.
10:48Originally WWE's most neglected pay-per-view, holder of the worst pay-per-view award in
10:522013, 2014, and 2017, Battleground was given a gift in 2016 in the form of this match.
10:59At the time, this was a weird time to do it, with Roman coming off a wellness policy violation
11:04so he was especially hated, Seth Rollins was in the middle of his just-returned-from-an-injury-to-a-crowd-that-really-wanted-to-cheer-him-but-he-kept-being-a-heel-for-two-months-anyway-and-then-turned-babyface-to-a-much-worse-response
11:14phase, and Dean Ambrose was WWE Champion, which somehow was the most baffling part of
11:19that puzzle.
11:20This match felt destined for a Mania match that it would never receive, especially tragic
11:24considering how much bigger that match would be now in comparison, but for the brave souls
11:29who bought tickets to Battleground expecting to see nonsense, instead they got this.
11:34And also Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn.
11:35I hear that was pretty good too.
11:37And that's our list.
11:38Make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe if you haven't already, and make
11:40sure that you help us get to 250,000 subscribers, it would mean a lot.
11:44And check out another one of our lists right here.