WWE News: WWE Planning To Cut Back On PPVs In Favor Of Live WWE Network Specials

WWE is known for doing a ton of live events per year, but also a lot of PPVs. Back in the Attitude Era, they did as many as they could and fans ate up the random shows like Rock Bottom, among others. The company then realized that they needed to stick to certain PPV names for fans to really dig them and look forward to them per year. Then when PPV numbers slid, they began to change the shows.

It now seems WWE has to add a gimmick to an event for people to care about it. Consider this, Royal Rumble, Extreme Rules, Money in the Bank, Hell in a Cell, TLC, and Survivor Series are all gimmick events. Before that, WWE had others like Elimination Chamber and Breaking Point which were also gimmicked. WWE simply has too many PPV events a year, and that ruins storylines for a lot of people.

People like to be teased up to a point, so waiting to see a major match for a few months is perfectly fine. In fact, WWE NXT has been doing this with a lot of success. It seems like WWE has noticed this, and the main roster very well could be cutting down the various PPV events. According to Daily Wrestling News, the idea is to cut PPVs down in favor of WWE Network specials like “Beast in the East” and the Madison Square Garden event.

Championships could still be on the line, and WWE could even work in various countries showing live specials. That allows them to sort of get away with showing events at random hours, such as 4:00 and 5:00 am like they did with the show out of Japan. The live event idea is good for various things and can happen any day of the week. There is less pressure put on everything, you don’t have to force main event material on these events, and you can still keep teasing a lot.

On top of this, WWE is able to allow the highlighting of other stars on the WWE Network on a regular basis. The major live events will become more of a custom for the undercard and mid-card talent to shine.

Meanwhile, the main roster can still work the top PPVs.

When does this appear to be taking place? The idea being thrown around is that WWE could cut some PPVs this year, but may do more WWE Network this year. However, the true time the PPVs start to go down a bit may be in 2017. They seem to want more time to know what the live specials can do. For now, they have done well and seem to be working just fine.

There have only been a few in 2015, so WWE still has to see where things will go this year.

As far as the NXT Takeover specials, it is said that these are not included in the discussion. WWE will be doing them as they have been. They may try to be a bit better about when they will occur, instead of just announcing them when they feel like it. That said, we may start to see them every other month or every three months like clockwork rather than a random time here and there. They also could announce these events for certain dates well ahead of time so that there is no confusion on when they will occur.

A lack of PPVs for the main roster could be good, but they are basically getting rid of those for live specials. They will need to make those specials worth seeing however. The others at least gave you a reason, whether it was a big NXT Title match or a cool MSG event, there was at least something to sink your teeth into. Hopefully WWE will do this with them if they plan to remove PPVs.

[AP Photo/Richard Drew]