Tag: vengeance

The final show of the WWE experiment of three PPV events in six weeks, the 7/11 Vengeance show from the Hartford Civic Center, was a two match show built around Chris Benoit vs. HHH for the World title, with Eugene in the middle, and Randy Orton vs. Edge for the IC title.

Both matches were more than 25:00, and were strong bouts. Early indications are a lower than usual buy rate, most fans either happy or so-so with the event, and another disappointing live gate.

The show drew about 7,000 fans, which was 6,000 paying $370,000, with much of the arena tarped off, and this was for a PPV event in the company’s Northeastern home base, featuring its strong crew.

The storyline made it evident that the world title would be decided upon by Eugene, who was being manipulated by HHH, as well as talked with by Benoit.

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The first Smackdown brand-only PPV in the U.S. (there have been Smackdown only brand PPV shows in the U.K.) on 7/27 at the Pepsi Arena in Denver, was largely considered an in-ring success, with every match that on paper looked good delivering.

The show drew approximately 9,500 paid (far more than that were actually in the building, although much of the upper deck was blocked off) and a house in the $475,000 range for a show headlined by Kurt Angle capturing what could be called his fourth or fifth-ever so-called world title (depending if you consider a six-day run as WCW champion when WWE recognized the title in 2001) in a three-way over Brock Lesnar and Big Show. The only surprise in the finish was that he pinned Lesnar. In most cases, it’s better for the title for the champion to get pinned, but they have pinned Lesnar, who had been booked as something special, so many times of late that I didn’t expect it to happen.

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