10 Worst WWE PPV Endings Ever

You always want to leave a pro wrestling audience on a high when they start heading for the exits at the end of three-plus hours of in-ring action. WWE haven’t always lived up to that wish, though, and some of their pay-per-views have concluded in ways that have left fans wanting their money back, or their WWE Network account cancelled.

From swerves and screwjobs to unbelievably silly spooky bollocks, these were the nights WWE sent their customers home without smiles on their faces.

These are the 10 Worst WWE Pay-Per-View Endings Ever.

10. Battleground 2013

In the main event of Night of Champions 2013, Daniel Bryan beat Randy Orton to regain the WWE Championship that The Viper and Triple H had conspired to take away from him at SummerSlam.

24 hours later on Raw, The Game once again managed to get the belt off Bryan, stripping him of the title due to referee Scott Armstrong’s fast count the night before.

Orton and The American Dragon continued to feud over the gold, leading to another pay-per-view main event over the now-vacant WWE Title.

The match itself was of the typically high standard you expect from two such accomplished pros, but the (lack of) a proper conclusion was unforgivable.

Battleground 2013 had been a bad show overall – outside of the excellent Shield vs. Rhodes brothers bout – with the non-ending in the main event leaving viewers with a sour taste in their mouths.

It wasn’t just that the WWE Title match ended inconclusively, either. It was the manner in which it went down, Big Show waddling out and knocking both men out was supposed to be a cliffhanger but, really, all it did was make people who bought the show feel cheated.

9. WrestleMania IX

WrestleMania 9 was not one of the better ‘Manias in WWE history. A lacklustre undercard bereft of highlights and a subdued Las Vegas audience made the show one that few fans relish revisiting.

Anyone who does bother going back to it is likely to turn it off before Hulk Hogan saunters out to make it all about him. Yokozuna defeated Bret Hart to win the WWE Title in the show’s headline match, which was a gutter for all The Hitman fans out there, but at least it helped establish the Samoan superheavyweight as a legitimate main eventer.

For about five minutes, anyway, because The Hulkster (who was seemingly there to check up on Hart after his loss) stepped up to Mr. Fuji’s inexplicable challenge and easily pinned Yoko to win the title.

The Sin City tourists in attendance may have popped for the switch – because Hogan was probably one of the only people on the card they actually recognised – but the shambolic scene was an insult to WWE fans who stumped up their hard-earned cash to watch the show on television.

Hogan’s subsequent title reign was a waste of time and he left the company a few months later.

8. SummerSlam 2003

WWE, to their discredit, pretty much fumbled Goldberg from the off.

The former WCW World Heavyweight Champion was still a popular force of nature and was able to show glimpses of his old self here and there, but stuff like booking that bizarre segment with Goldust and having Goldberg sell a lot in long matches with The Rock and Chris Jericho diminished his aura.

Finally, several months into his run, Goldberg got the chance to show just what he was all about.

At SummerSlam 2003, Da’ Man entered the World Heavyweight Title Elimination Chamber match fifth and set about tearing apart Jericho, Randy Orton and Shawn Michaels, eliminating all three men in dominant fashion.

That just left the champion, Triple H, standing between Goldberg and the big gold belt. Well, Triple H and Ric Flair, who slid The Cerebral Assassin a sledgehammer, allowing him to retain the title in limp fashion.

Fans were so into Goldberg and were desperate to see him win the title here, with this result once again halting his momentum.

WWE will argue that they had to have Triple H go over, since he was injured and could put Goldberg over ‘the right way’ a month later, but Goldberg’s Unforgiven victory seemed hollow after this.

7. WrestleMania 27

WrestleMania 27 was another ‘Mania entry that really didn’t live up to its Showcase of the Immortals tagline.

There were a couple of decent matches on offer, sure, and the No Holds Barred brawl between The Undertaker and Triple H was one of the better matches of the year, but overall it felt like a massive letdown given the hype.

That feeling had a lot to do with how the show ended.

The Miz defending the WWE Title against John Cena didn’t feel like a WrestleMania main event and the pedestrian action played out like something you’d see on an average episode of Raw from that era.

WWE tried to inject some intrigue by having it first end in a double count-out, only for WrestleMania host The Rock to come out and restart the match before costing John Cena the contest as a receipt for the AA he’d received six days earlier.

The Dwayne Johnson Variety Hour continued as he gave the concussed champ a People’s Elbow and celebrated as the show faded to black.

None of this worked and it was grating how obvious WWE were being in using the finish as an opportunity to help set up next year’s ‘Mania main event.

6. Hell In A Cell 2018

The Hell in a Cell match was originally devised as the ultimate place for WWE stars to settle their grudges.

With no rules and no escaping the cage (until someone invariably broke out of it), the match would only end when one man had beaten the other by pinfall or submission.

At some point in time, the Cell match concept became diluted and lost its way, something that was readily apparent when WWE introduced the namesake pay-per-view to its crammed calendar.

It was bad enough having two, sometimes three Cell matches on one show, but WWE did themselves (and fans) no favours with some of the finishes they booked for them.

Like in 2018, when Braun Strowman cashed in his Money in the Bank title shot against Roman Reigns.

The match itself was alright, as The Big Dog and Monster Among Men put a shift in, but the finish was horrendously overbooked.

Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins came out for a scrap, before Brock Lesnar made his surprise return, kicked the door off its hinges and dropped Reigns and Strowman with F5s. That was enough to render the match a ‘No Contest’.

5. Royal Rumble 2015

At Royal Rumble 2014, fans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania famously turned on the show when they realised Daniel Bryan wasn’t going to be in the titular match, booing eventual winner and returning babyface Dave Batista out of the building.

You’d think WWE would have learned from that chastening experience and would do things right the next year in Philadelphia. You’d think wrong, because they somehow bungled it even worse.

They had Bryan eliminated relatively early, hoping his exit wouldn’t hamper the conclusion. But it didn’t work and as much as fans wanted to see D-Bry win it this time, they equally as much didn’t want to see Roman Reigns punch his ticket to WrestleMania.

The Big Dog’s full-steam-ahead babyface push was not going down well with the WWE audience and they booed not only Roman but The Rock, on hand to provide an endorsement to his cousin, out of the building.

#CancelWWENetwork trended in the aftermath and the online cancellation page reportedly crashed, so negative was the reaction to how the show had ended.

WWE had expected an unruly response, but not to this degree, while Vince McMahon claimed the controversy was a good thing.

4. Great American Bash 2004

The 2004 Great American Bash did not have people celebrating WWE’s decision to revive the old WCW branding.

The undercard was stuffed with sub-house show-level filler like Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly, Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn and Luther Reigns vs. Charlie Haas, while Eddie Guerrero losing the WWE Title to JBL (in an admittedly solid Texas Bullrope Match) was a downer.

A good main event would have gone some way towards making up for this absolute shower. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

In the show-closing contest, The Undertaker defeated The Dudley Boys in a handicap ‘Concrete Crypt’ match. Per the pre-match stipulation, Paul Bearer would be encased in cement should The Deadman lose.

The Undertaker won the match and then pulled the lever to ostensibly kill off his manager anyway.

So, not only was the match itself a complete washout as far as in-ring action was concerned, but WWE reneged on their own stipulation and had the show go off the air with a character’s murder.

WWE later clarified that Bearer was not, in fact, dead, but had internal injuries and that we likely wouldn’t see him again.

3. Hell In A Cell 2014

The main event of Hell in a Cell 2014 was supposed to be the site of the big blowoff between Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.

The two ex-Shield Members had been warring for months and this was one of the first times in a long while that it felt as though the Cell stipulation was actually warranted.

Certainly more so than John Cena and Randy Orton’s second Cell match against each other.

The match was suitably chaotic, with The Lunatic Fringe and The Architect pulling out all the stops to end the show on a high. It’s such a shame, then, that they were failed by the creative.

After getting hit with chairs, going through tables and falling off the side of the Cell, the thing that ultimately did Ambrose in was a spooky lantern projecting a hologram.

This was a bad idea in theory and an even worse one in practice, with WWE’s production doing nobody any favours.

True to form, Ambrose and Wyatt’s eventual meeting at TLC also featured a naff finale courtesy of a malfunctioning television monitor.

2. ECW December To Dismember

Despite the strong critical and commercial reception the 2005 and 2006 ECW One Night Stand pay-per-views received, WWE management seemed to give up on the brand’s reboot rather quickly.

The apathy was on full display at the last-ever ECW pay-per-view – the utterly disastrous December to Dismember.

Not only did WWE only bother to advertise two matches prior to the show, but they didn’t even follow through on one of them, as Sabu was taken out of the Extreme Elimination Chamber match and replaced by Hardcore Holly.

Sabu was probably thankful he wasn’t on the show come the end of the night, because it was one of the most notoriously bad pay-per-views in WWE history.

The ECW fans in the arena literally turned their backs on the ending, too, outright rejecting WWE’s handpicked hero Bobby Lashley when they (as well as Paul Heyman) would have much rather seen Rob Van Dam or CM Punk walk out of the chamber as ECW Champion.

The show – which ended about 30 minutes too early – essentially put an end to the ECW experiment and truly ‘earned’ its record low buyrate.

1. Hell In A Cell 2019

Hell in a Cell was truly a cursed pay-per-view series. 2014 had the spooky hologram, which was bad. 2018 had the overbooked ‘no contest’, which was also bad. But 2019 was the worst of the lot.

First, the first-time meeting between Universal Champion Seth Rollins and The Fiend didn’t need to be in the Cell.

Second, WWE made the call to bathe the arena in red light for the match, which was distracting.

Then there was the referee stoppage finish. The referee called for the bell as Rollins attempted to maim Bray Wyatt’s alter-ego, drawing the immediate ire of the 10,000 fans in the stands, who deservedly and unmercifully jeered it while chanting ‘refund’, ‘restart the match’, ‘AEW’ and other remarks.

The post-match angle simply insulted the intelligence of its own audience and infuriated both talents in the match.