People who grew up with King of the Ring as a PPV often wonder why they stopped. The answer is simple: Money. 

This shows the number of PPV buys by year, the average number of buys at the Big Four PPVs (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and Survivor Series), and the percentage difference between that year’s KOTR and the average of the Big Four. I compared the Big Four because while KOTR didn’t start as early, it was only five years behind when that started, and it ran for a decade straight. 

Interesting Notes:

-Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon headlined the two biggest KOTR PPVs. The biggest ever was headlined by Rock, Undertaker, and Kane vs. Triple H, Vince, and Shane in a six-man where the WWF title was on the line in 2000. In 1999, in a handicap match for ownership of WWE, Shane and Vince wrestled Steve Austin in a ladder match for ownership of the WWF. Isn’t that reason enough to cancel the concept? Sweet Jesus. 

-The lowest amount of PPV buys was in 1995, the only KOTR PPV not to feature a WWF/WWE title match on the show. Further proof that fans didn’t care about seeing who would win the tournament. 

-I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t just make the winner get an automatic WWF title shot at Summerslam, but it happened four of the ten years anyway. Maybe that would have helped the business because, just like the early Rumble PPV buys indicated, being the best wrestler on one night wasn’t a hook for customers. 

-From a timing perspective, you can probably see why they ended the concept when they did. Despite doing 445k and 320k in 2001 and 2002, those numbers were down 53% and 58% respectively, versus the Big Four PPVs that year.  KOTR ranked 7th in 2001

PPV buys for twelve events and ranked 10th out of twelve in 2002. Ouch. 

-The only two PPVs the 2002 version beat in PPV buys were headlined by Triple H vs. Goldberg on one show and Undertaker vs. Brock on the other. Wow.

-1994 is an interesting number at 185,000, tying for the third-worst KOTRs. The match featured Bret vs. Diesel in a WWF title match, where Diesel was also IC champion. This was before Diesel was made a top guy, but coming off an all-time memorable Rumble performance and IC title win over Razor. 

-The first Kane vs. Austin WWF title match in 1998 only came in 8th of twelve PPVs that year. 

-The 1997 version is interesting because there was only a five percent difference between that event and the average of the big four. It feels odd because that show was headlined by Undertaker vs. Farooq for the WWF title and a Shawn vs. Steve Austin babyface match underneath. I don’t want to get into a whole conversation about Taker’s 1997 title run not drawing, but I guess you can attribute much of that to Shawn vs. Austin. Maybe the first match of tag team champions against each other helped.