The biggest tournament in North America is only a few days away. Schools from around the United States will enter March Madness with aspirations of outlasting the field and becoming National Champions. It\u2019s a time when thousands of people will enter into bracket competitions as the world watches and waits.<\/p>\n
WWE is not without its great tournaments either. In the decades WWE has been around, they have produced several tournaments to crown champions, number one contenders, and Kings. These tournaments have been a staple of WWE programming, and rarely does a year go by without one reaching our television screens. With March Madness upon us, it seems the perfect time to look back at the best tournaments in World Wrestling Entertainment history.<\/p>\n
WWE\u2019s tournament to crown its king had been absent from programming for a few years before it came roaring back in 1993. This time, WWE had decided to run the tournament in a one-night PLE of the same name, and the initial results were fantastic.<\/p>\n
This was one of the deepest fields that WWE had put together for a King of the Ring tournament. 5 of the 8 men included are WWE Hall of Famers, and two others should be getting an induction sooner rather than later. The list of men involved in this tournament was the best in the company and brought a level of importance back to the King of the Ring.<\/p>\n
What made this tournament so great was the fact that there wasn\u2019t a bad match in the bunch. Every match on the card was unique, which helped keep the matches fresh as the tournament moved into the later rounds. Particular highlights were every Bret Hart match and Lex Luger and Tatanka\u2019s time limit draw. It was a great night of wrestling that ended with a well-deserved victory from the Excellence of Execution.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vince McMahon would stop at nothing to ensure that Steve Austin would not represent his company as its champion. He didn\u2019t fit the mold of what McMahon envisioned, and thus, we had a summer of the boss screwing Austin at every turn. It led to many shenanigans in 1998, and when the WWE Championship was held up, a one-night tournament<\/a> was established to determine the undisputed champ.<\/p>\n The wrestlers involved in this tournament were the faces of the Attitude Era. Men like Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, and The Rock all had their names drawn, with each having a great shot to take home the gold. It was a top-heavy tournament, but all the important names were there.<\/p>\n Deadly Games was not much about match quality, but it contained a great overall story. This was about Vince McMahon and Steve Austin, and every match was booked accordingly. Having all the matches weave into the overarching rivalry of Austin and McMahon was a stroke of genius and made the night memorable. A night punctuated by two swerves that no one saw coming, and ones that ushered in a new top guy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the early summer of 2005, Raw needed a new number one contender. World Champion Batista was only a few months into his first championship reign and needed to face someone other than Triple H. That\u2019s when Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff stepped in to create the Gold Rush Tournament. A tournament featuring Raw’s 8 best talents battling in a hidden gem of a tournament.<\/p>\n There was a great mix of young and veteran talents in this tournament. The matchups were fresh and showed the world a great representation of what Raw had to offer. This was one of the few tournaments that WWE has put on where there wasn\u2019t a bad match in the bunch.<\/p>\n Each match had great wrestling, and even the defeated wrestlers looked strong. There were also some great surprises along the way, with Triple H and Shawn Michaels suffering defeats before the finals. There was no better way to usher in a new era of stars on the Raw roster.<\/p>\n Also, one cannot mention this tournament without looking back at HBK\u2019s insane superkick to Shelton Benjamin. If you haven\u2019t witnessed this spot, go back and watch it now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first two iterations of the King of the Ring PLE showed the world exactly why, when booked well, these types of one-night tournaments can be epic. This was another stacked lineup of wrestlers, but ones that were more mid-card talents than the main event stars that were present the year before.<\/p>\n WWE used this King of the Ring as a blueprint for how other King of the Ring tournaments were booked going forward. We got a fabulous showcase of what WWE\u2019s future looked like in 1994.<\/p>\n As with the 1993 tournament, the match quality was fantastic here. The length of the matches left a little to be desired, but each had its exciting moments. There was plenty to love about the matches and the story being told as the tournament went on.<\/p>\n The gritty underdog work of the 1-2-3 Kid was great, the redemption arc of Razor Ramon was fantastic, and the crowning of Owen Hart as the true King of Harts was the exclamation point that capped the tournament.<\/p>\n The only drawback to the night was the fact that Owen Hart’s triumph was not the closing moment of the evening. With the work put in by everyone, the finale should have received that honour.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Seth Rollins loss was the wrestling world’s gain. After suffering a knee injury, he was forced to relinquish the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, setting up a multi-night tournament to determine WWE\u2019s next champion.<\/p>\n The bracket for the World Championship tournament was again stacked. You had the usual suspects that one would want to headline the tournament. Men like Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Alberto Del Rio were the clear favorites, but the rest of the men filling out the bracket were a varied bunch. All brands were represented, with some underrated talents given a chance to shine when the lights were at their brightest.<\/p>\n Once we got past the first round, every match was a banger. Cesaro and Roman Reigns were fantastic, Neville taking on Kevin Owens was criminally underrated, and Dean Ambrose taking on Dolph Ziggler was exactly what we have come to expect from the two.<\/p>\n That led to a great three-match finale at the Survivor Series, where Roman Reigns was crowned the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion to loud cheers. For a last-minute scramble, WWE did a phenomenal job of putting together a compelling tournament that made Roman Reigns look like a stud.<\/p>\n The cruiserweight division never got the love it deserved from WWE. The smaller wrestlers always got the short end of the stick when it came to booking, being pushed aside in favour of the larger wrestlers. Luckily, for all of us, WWE pulled a rabbit out of their hat and produced one of the most incredible tournaments across any promotion. They pulled the best cruiserweights from around the world to compete in the 32-man Cruiserweight Classic<\/a>.<\/p>\n The list of men involved in this tournament was incredible. Nowhere in the world was this type of roster compiled, with WWE pulling stars from all over the world. Yes, some names changed when they competed in the tournament, but the talent was still there to determine the best of the best.<\/p>\n There are no notes on any match in this tournament. The high-flying style of every wrestler was fantastic, and these men worked their butts off to make all matches memorable. For those who watched every contest, they were treated to exciting spots, great chain wrestling, and the ushering in of a new era of stars. WWE didn\u2019t do much with the talent after this tournament, but it won’t take away from the men who made it the best tournament in WWE history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The biggest tournament in North America is only a few days away. Schools from around the United States will enter March Madness with aspirations of outlasting the field and becoming National Champions. It\u2019s a time when thousands of people will enter into bracket competitions as the world watches and waits. WWE is not without its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4518,"featured_media":155011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7205,4],"tags":[122,721],"class_list":["post-154984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-wwe","tag-cruiserweight-classic","tag-king-of-the-ring"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155003,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154984\/revisions\/155003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gold Rush Tournament 2005 <\/strong><\/h2>\n
King of the Ring 1994 <\/strong><\/h2>\n
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament (2015) <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Cruiserweight Classic 2016 <\/strong><\/h2>\n