The yearly shitshow that was WWE’s Battleground trudged on by like how the Discovery Channel thought it would be a great idea to convince its viewers that Michael Phelps would really be racing a shark. Come on Discovery Channel, we the people of America expect better.

I didn’t expect much out of Battleground, which is not only typical of this particular pay per view, but a majority of PPV’s that seem to pop up bi-weekly.

Bi-weekly pay per views? It sounds exciting in theory, but as we’ve witnessed with a stretch of six below par PPV shows since Wrestlemania in a three month span, it’s terrible in practice.

In 2017, there’s 17 scheduled pay per view shows, not including the NXT Takeover shows.

I’ll talk more about the PPV over-saturation problem in a minute, but I first want to connect my golf tournament to WWE pay per view comparison.

I also want to put out a request to change the name of WWE pay per views to something more appropriate, considering these shows aren’t being paid per view anymore. PPV shows are essentially network specials paid for by a subscription fee, but yes I know “Network Special” won’t cut it.

WWE pay per views lack the special quality outside of the big four. Casual golf fans will probably see where I’m going with this.

WWE has four pay per views that it actively cares about the quality of:

Wrestlemania

SummerSlam

Royal Rumble

Survivor Series

Compare that to the big four major championships in golf:

The Masters

The US Open

The Open Championship (The British Open)

The PGA Championship

from Golf Content Network; Yup, that’s Augusta National. Maybe I’ll have enough money to play there some day.

Wrestlemania and the Masters are the big tickets. That’s where the history and the memories are made and feel most important. The wrestlers and competitors that win big in these respective events are then closely observed throughout the rest of the year.

Now if you get caught up in the semantics of wrestling being a performance and golf being a sport, you’re missing the point.

Wrestlemania and the Masters are meant to represent the pinnacle events on the schedule. The production value from the elaborate Wrestlemania set to the beautiful Augusta National course is given as much care as possible. The broadcast is tediously prepared so that all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. This is a parallel that can be made in all sports where this is one singular signature event. The Super Bowl, the Finals, the World Series, the Daytona 500, Wimbledon, and so on.

Also if there’s any die hard tennis fans out there, you could make the tennis majors comparison if you’re feeling cheeky. I’ll wager more Americans are familiar with golf. (I didn’t know the Australian Open was a major until I saw it on the Wiki.)

WWE’s SummerSlam has taken the reigns as the 2nd most important major on the circuit, it’s like a Wrestlemania lite or appetizer. Where the Royal Rumble sets the table for Wrestlemania by starting and ending major feuds, SummerSlam takes all the hottest feuds of the summer culminating in an action packed show.

Royal Rumble is in pretty close contention with SummerSlam because of its importance and excitement behind driven by the Rumble match. The winner goes on to main event Wrestlemania. Terrible booking has buried the last five to seven Rumble matches due to the winners.

Survivor Series has the history and the storyline gimmick to be important enough to catch the attention of casual fans, though the shows in recent memory haven’t been all too great. It’s an important, but tempered show in the way the PGA Championship is a major tournament, but doesn’t register the same excitement as the the other majors.

So the WWE going all out for four major historical PPV’s is all good, they should to protect the integrity of these events. When these events happen to be bad, like the recent Royal Rumble shows, a very responsive and negative reaction occurs within the fan base. It’s how you get ‘cancel WWE Network subscription’ trending on Twitter.

The fact that the WWE’s big four shows are their more grand showcases, isn’t the particular problem with WWE’s pay per view schedule.

The problem is the quality of the 13 other PPV’s that are just over-glorified wrestling shows. The excitement behind an Extreme Rules PPV is not only extreme rules matches, but the fact that there are going to be titles on the line, and the show is mostly wrestling. Whereas, the weekly Raw and SmackDown shows have A LOT of talking.

from WWE.com, Sasha Bank doesn’t look impressed by Alicia Fox’s kick, but I’m more unimpressed with the shitty booking they give a talented female wrestler. Women’s revolution huh?

The idea behind a pay per view event is that, I, a fan of the product, would be intrigued or entertained enough to spend a couple hours from the paycheck to watch the show. If the show wasn’t good, I take my money elsewhere.

Before the WWE Network, PPV’s cost 60 bones. With the monthly subscription, 10 bones gets you two PPV’s in a month.

Shows that used to be heavy on spectacle and value are now half-assed. Less money being spent on elaborate sets, a lack of pyro for entrances, even the pre-match hype packages are suffering. But even if you look past the aesthetics, there’s not much inspired booking, wrestling, or memorable moments. The WWE at its best generates a spectacle, life-lasting moments you can reminisce on for years and years. In recent memory we had the Hardy Boyz surprise return and win at Mania, Kevin Owens turning on Chris Jericho, and way before that, Daniel Bryan winning the WWE championship at Mania. When asked, what have you enjoyed about wrestling in the last few years, I can spout these moments or matches off no problem.

from Daily DDT

Can you remember the main event of Extreme Rules or Fast Lane a year or two ago…?

Shows like Backlash or Battleground represent the weekly PGA Tour events that only hardcore golf fans pay attention to. Backlash is like the Valspar Championship and Battleground would be the Shell Houston Open. To whomever wins at these events you get a hefty cash pat on the back and a shiny trophy for your efforts.

More fans know who Rory McIlroy is than Justin Thomas, and that’s not a sleight to Justin Thomas. Rory Mac has four major wins, Thomas has four PGA Tour wins. Thomas has won three times this season, Rory has 0.

When did weekly golf events matter to the casual golf fan?

Answer: When Tiger Woods was winning all of them.

from CNN.com

The potential guys to fill in the top guy role for the WWE are either suffocated in the mid-card or only get brief flashes of main event time. (Styles, Owens, Nakamura, Samoa Joe, Balor)

This gets back to why Battleground 2017 was just as irrelevant as the John Deere Classic. Jinder Mahal is not a legitimate champion. Bear with me because I want to return to the Tiger Woods analogy, I promise it works.

Let’s say AJ Styles is prime Tiger Woods. Styles is one of the best performers in the company, and the fans are behind him.

Jinder Mahal is….. Alex Cejka… I think I’ve seen his name on a leaderboard once. Alex Cejka is ranked 216th in the world golf rankings.

from PGA Tour; The man, the myth, the legend, Alex Cejka.

So prime Tiger Woods is tearing up the golf course, he’s roasting the competition and playing a fantastic game of golf. Instead of the broadcast following Tiger’s game, the broadcast is mostly fixated with a pretty below average game from ALEX CEJKA. Golf fans would be throwing their televisions out the window. “Why am I watching Alex Cejka, when I could be watching greatness?”

So I ask you WWE, why am I watching a bad wrestler when there’s 200 more talented people in the world than who I’m watching?

Bigger golf tournaments draw bigger names. Prime Tiger doesn’t need to show up for the John Deere Classic, he shows up for the Players Championship or the WGC Championship.

For Battleground to mean something, the best wrestlers need to be in the main event in a storyline that is worthy of their time. Watching a John Cena vs. Rusev rerun is not worth anyone’s time. Battleground is easy to pick on, but this has been true of many PPV’s outside of the premiere four.

The WWE in general has an over-saturation problem and the fact that there’s 17 PPV events in a year doesn’t make the 13 non-major events feel any more special. On top of that, the weekly SmackDown and Raw is a combined 5 hours out of your week. Asking the WWE scale back on its production is long overdue, but they seem to only want to add more non-essential shows like 205 Live. If you’re watching a week with a PPV, Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and 205 Live, the WWE just about runs your life.

Without any hope of the WWE scaling back on their schedule, the only hope is for the booking to drastically change, and that’s a whole other article to get into.

For now, the WWE has to focus on improving the quality of their PPV’s from mattering as much as who wins the RBC Heritage. Sorry Wesley Bryan, whom I’ve never heard of before.