4 reasons why WWE has never booked Elias to win a main-show PPV match

#3 His PPV opponents needed wins more than him

Looking at the list of names Elias has defeated on pay-per-view kickoff shows (Apollo Crews, Matt Hardy, and Bobby Lashley), it was pretty clear that “The Living Truth” needed the wins at the time a lot more than his opponents.

The victories over Crews and Lashley took place at times when WWE was pushing Elias as more of a prominent Superstar on Raw, first as a heel and then as a babyface, while Hardy’s defeat at Survivor Series 2017 made sense long-term because it kick-started his transition into becoming “Woken”.

As for the main-show PPV defeats, we can forget about the Royal Rumbles and other multi-man #1 contender matches – Elias was never going to realistically win those – so that only leaves his matches against Jason Jordan (TLC 2017), Seth Rollins (Money In The Bank 2018), and Bobby Lashley & John Cena (Super Show-Down).

In late 2017, Jordan was being pushed as a future opponent for Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 34 (that did not happen, of course), so it was only right that he would pick up the win. As for the Rollins and Cena matches, it is one thing for Elias to defeat them on Raw, but on PPV? He is not at that stage yet.