10 WWE Title PPV Matches Nobody Remembers

A WWE world title match is supposed to be a pay-per-view selling point, a marquee attraction that convinces punters to part with their hard-earned cash in order to see the show.

They’re supposed to be, but aren’t always, and even blockbuster bouts that look good on paper can underwhelm to the point that you simply forget they ever happened.

These matches may have been over the WWE - or Undisputed, or World Heavyweight – title, but ended up having the same legacy as any old midcard fodder.

These are 10 WWE Title Pay-Per-View Matches Nobody Remembers.

10. Edge Vs. Rey Mysterio - No Way Out 2008

After failing to defeat World Heavyweight Champion Edge at the 2008 Royal Rumble, Rey Mysterio was given another crack at the gold at No Way Out in a match where Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder were banned from ringside.

We’re sure Edge and Rey, familiar foes who had great chemistry with each other, would have put on a tremendous show at the pay-per-view in Las Vegas, had the masked man not torn his right biceps while competing in a tag match on a house show in Santiago, Chile just four days prior.

Though he badly needed major surgery and a six-month layoff, Mysterio wrestled against The Rated-R Superstar as scheduled at No Way Out.

The upshot was their match was short, safe and largely uneventful, ending when Edge pinned the challenger following a mid-air Spear.

Another thing that makes this particular World Heavyweight Title match forgettable is that it was completely overshadowed by the post-match angle where Big Show made his WWE return and got into it with Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather and his entourage at ringside.

Fair play to Rey for gutting it out, but nobody remembered his five-and-a-half-minute effort five-and-a-half minutes later.

9. AJ Styles Vs. Rusev - Extreme Rules 2018

The wrestling world rejoiced when AJ Styles beat Jinder Mahal to reclaim the WWE Title on the November 7, 2017, episode of SmackDown.

The Phenomenal One was a versatile performer who seemed to get the best out of everyone and his year-long reign produced some diamonds against Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe and others.

While the King of Strong Style and Samoan Submission Machine occupied a lot of AJ’s time, the champ also defended against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a handicap match and in a frenetic Six-Pack Challenge match on pay-per-view.

You may remember those matches, but you probably won’t recall Styles putting the gold up against Rusev at Extreme Rules – despite the fact the match took place on Rusev Day (of all days).

It was by no means a bad match. In fact, I’d go as far as to say AJ and The Bulgarian Brute showed decent chemistry together and could have put on something special in a different setting and if they had a stronger build.

As it is, this was a routine defence for Styles on a middling show that nobody was in any hurry to watch back once it was over.

8. CM Punk vs. Batista - Great American Bash 2008

Despite being in the company together for about four years, Batista and CM Punk never really had a major feud and only squared off in five televised singles matches.

Their first on-camera encounter took place at the 2008 Great American Bash, with the Straight-Edge Superstar’s World Heavyweight Title on the line.

Punk had shocked the world by cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase on Edge just a few weeks earlier and this would be an early (and very stern) test of his mettle.

The match itself, as far as the in-ring action was concerned, was alright. Nothing great. Nothing outright terrible.

But the match had a few things going against it that has probably caused fans to erase it from their memory banks.

For a start, it was babyface versus babyface and there was no strong storyline going into it. Then it was placed behind a Park Lot Brawl between John Cena and JBL and a WWE Title match between Triple H and Edge, basically telling you how WWE viewed its importance.

And, finally, it came to a lame end when Kane ran in for a cheap double disqualification, which was a dissatisfying conclusion to a weak match.

7. Bret Hart vs. The Patriot - In Your House: Ground Zero

Bret Hart may have been the WWE Champion coming out of SummerSlam 1997, but the main story was very much the dispute between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker after The Heartbreak Kid had inadvertently cost The Deadman the title.

The first Michaels/’Taker meeting took place in the main event of the next month’s In Your House: Ground Zero pay-per-view, with The Hitman having to settle for the semi-main slot.

His opponent was The Patriot, who pretty much only existed to play a part in The Hart Foundation’s righteous Canadian crusade against the evils of the United States.

The man behind the mask, Del Wilkes, was a decent enough worker, but he obviously wasn’t at the level where you expected him to truly test someone the calibre of Bret.

As the Excellence of Execution routinely did when paired against inferior opposition, he worked his pink and black backside off to make the match an engaging one before retaining with his trusty Sharpshooter.

Engaging, perhaps, but Ground Zero was such a throwaway show and The Patriot was such a minor character in the grand scheme of things that this one doesn’t really register.

6. The Rock vs. X-Pac - Capital Carnage

While WWE might have been red-hot during the Attitude Era, their UK-exclusive pay-per-views during this time were typically lukewarm.

1998’s Capital Carnage, which took place in the London Arena, was no exception.

Its main event – a four-way between Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane and Mankind – was heavy on star power and featured an appearance from Vinnie Jones, but the rest of the card was full of short, basic matches that failed to ignite.

One of the best of a bad bunch was corporate champion The Rock defending his WWE Title against X-Pac.

Both men are good workers and the 12-and-a-half-minute bout had its moments, but most of the emphasis was on the interaction between The Great One and X-Pac’s DX stablemates Chyna and Triple H, who were stationed at ringside.

This also played into the weak finish, as the champ got disqualified after getting into it with The Game.

Nobody bought X-Pac (who had been made to look like a geek on television in the weeks leading up to the show) as a proper challenger who had a hope of winning and the match felt arbitrary as a result.

5. Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman vs. Edge - Rebellion 2002

The main event of 2002’s Rebellion was supposed to see Brock Lesnar defend his Undisputed Title against The Undertaker.

However, the Phenom was taken off the show – which emanated from Manchester, England – after he was written off television following an attack by The Big Show.

Addressing ‘Taker’s absence in a promo at the beginning of the event, SmackDown General Manager Stephanie McMahon claimed he had to stay in the US as his then-wife Sara was due to give birth.

While Steph managed to get Raw’s Booker T for one night only as a ‘replacement’, it was Edge who received a shot at The Next Big Thing – albeit in a handicap match where Lesnar was to team with his manager Paul Heyman.

It was actually really good! It was also the only thing resembling a televised singles match between Brock and Edge, so remains something of a curiosity.

As this was a UK-exclusive pay-per-view with a weak undercard and very little hype (and possibly because Edge hadn’t yet hit his stride as a singles performer), nobody ever brings it up.

4. John Cena vs. Chris Jericho vs. Christian - Vengeance 2005

By rights, the WWE Title match at Vengeance 2005 should have been John Cena defending against Christian.

Captain Charisma had been goading the champ for months and was really building momentum on Raw as someone who looked like they could be a top heel.

Evidently, someone (or a whole bunch of people) in creative didn’t think Christian could carry his weight and so they inserted Chris Jericho into the equation as, we guess, a way to add a little intrigue and have two skilled pros on hand to carry Cena along.

The match itself is pretty entertaining. Christian and Jericho do most of the heavy lifting and make sure it moves at a good pace, though the result is never really in doubt.

The result was Cena pinning Christian to retain, obviously.

One of the reasons this match doesn’t get a lot of love and isn’t brought up is because it took place on a show also featuring the WrestleMania 21 rematch between Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle and a World Heavyweight Title Hell in a Cell gorefest between Triple H and Batista.

Next to those two, this was a very distant third.

3. The Big Show Vs. Big Boss Man - Armageddon 1999

At the 1999 Survivor Series, Big Show famously filled in for Steve Austin, who had been ‘run over’ earlier in the show in an angle designed to write him off television while he underwent major neck surgery.

The World’s Largest Athlete, to the surprise of many, ended up winning the WWE Title from Triple H in a triple threat match also featuring The Rock.

Show’s short reign was not a stellar one, though he did defend it regularly in mostly short, televised matches against the likes of The British Bulldog, Hardcore Holly, Kane, Chris Jericho, Viscera and others.

The champion’s main beef at this time, however, was with the Big Boss Man, who had irked Show by gatecrashing his father’s funeral and stealing the casket.

Something had to give and it had to give at Armageddon, where the cop from Cobb County, Georgia got his shot at the title.

Positioned in the semi-main slot, TBS and BBM got a whopping three minutes in which the seven-footer retained and blew off what had actually been a fairly hot feud with surprising ease.

2. Dean Ambrose Vs. Dolph Ziggler - SummerSlam 2016

Dean Ambrose’s WWE Title run got off to a hot start, as he cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on former Shield teammate Seth Rollins at the end of the namesake pay-per-view in 2016.

He then defended the title against Rollins and Roman Reigns in the triple-threat headliner of Battleground, an encouraging sign for fans of the Lunatic Fringe.

But then Ambrose made his notoriously catastrophic appearance on Steve Austin’s Broken Skulls Sessions and, well, alarm bells started ringing.

Could the champ get the train back on the tracks when he defended his title against Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam a couple of weeks later? In a word, no.

Totally lost in the shuffle on a card also featuring AJ Styles vs. John Cena, the first-ever Universal Title match and Brock Lesnar taking on Randy Orton, Ambrose and the Show-Off put forth a disappointing effort.

The so-so action wasn’t helped by the fact that nobody in the arena believed that Ziggler had a hope in hell of leaving with the title, resulting in a total lack of heat.

It really was no surprise to see Ambrose drop the title to AJ Styles at Backlash a few weeks later, given the apathy on display here.

1. Triple H vs. Vladimir Kozlov - Survivor Series 2008

The WWE Title match at Survivor Series 2008 was supposed to see Triple H defending against Vladimir Kozlov and Jeff Hardy in a triple threat match.

That would have at least given it a two-thirds chance of being entertaining, but WWE ran an angle earlier in the day claiming that Jeff had been found ‘unconscious in his hotel stairway’ and was removed from the bout.

It thus became a bog-standard singles match between The Game and the Moscow Mauler and, well…

Triple H may have been a damn good worker capable of carrying subpar opponents but he wasn’t a miracle worker and their deathly dull match was rightly met with ‘USA’, ‘boring’ and ‘we want Hardy’ chants.

After 12 minutes of absolute dross, the excitement was upped as the SmackDown General Manager introduced a returning Edge to the mix, while the ultra-popular Charismatic Enigma provided a cameo at the finish.

Fans may remember the chaotic ending and surprise title change, but we reckon they’d have been actively trying to memoryhole Vladimir Kozlov being presented as a serious challenger in a WWE Title match on a major pay-per-view.