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WWE Fastlane has been around since 2015 now, and while that doesn’t sound like a long time, it’s certainly felt like an eternity for the majority of WWE fans. The event has been positioned in between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania in the last few years, with it taking the role of being the final PPV stop before we reach the showcase of the immortals.
Some fans out there may enjoy watching Fastlane on a year-by-year basis, but for us, it’s nothing more than a big old waste of time. Sure, we get some decent matches out of it every now and then, but aside from that, we could do without it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the company doesn’t intend on binning the concept any time soon, meaning that we’re all going to have to resort to moaning on the internet.
With that being said, here are five reasons why Fastlane is the worst WWE pay per view.
#5 Track Record
2015, 2016 and 2017 were decent enough years for WWE from a financial standpoint, and they all had something else in common – their edition of Fastlane wasn’t very good. Whether it be due to the card or the booking decisions made by the company, they just can’t seem to carve out an interesting version of this show.
It’s been a flawed concept ever since it was officially introduced, and it seems baffling to us that WWE hasn’t figured that out yet. Their inability to make some kind of change leads us to believe that the same thing is likely to happen in 2018, and you know things are bad when even Battleground has had a few decent moments over the years.
#4 Unnecessary
Make Elimination Chamber a dual-branded pay per view, and make it the only event you need to run between Rumble and Mania. Simple. Two pay per views between these two shows is just way too much, and we need to be given a chance to let things play out on Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live.
They could even have bigger and more stacked editions of those two shows because it’s better than the alternative of having a pay per view that does nothing for the overall product before Mania. Realistically we know that there’s always going to be an event positioned in this kind of spot, but if anything it gives us less time to build towards the biggest event on the WWE calendar.
#3 Mania Matches
Goldust vs Stardust, Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan, Rusev vs John Cena, AJ Styles vs Chris Jericho, Roman Reigns vs Braun Strowman, Goldberg vs Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe vs Sami Zayn. Those are just a few examples of matches that were either done a second time the next month at Mania or should’ve been done at Mania instead of being put on the Fastlane card.
For some reason, WWE has been hell-bent on not planning further ahead in recent years, which has left us with several editions of RematchMania. Plus, we’ve had superstars put on great matches during Fastlane only for them to be left off the WrestleMania main card altogether.
It seems incredibly unbalanced, and it’ll continue to plague this show’s legacy.
#2 The Pun
It seems odd to write an entire entry about something that some fans may actually find enjoyable, but we’re going to go ahead with it anyway. You see, we understand that the road to WrestleMania is an enjoyable time for any professional wrestling fan, but that doesn’t mean we need to emphasize it every five minutes on WWE television.
‘Fastlane’ being used as a pay per view name is almost as bad as when they used ‘Roadblock’ for a WWE Network special, and we aren’t kidding. If Fastlane had actually produced more good content than bad over the last three years we wouldn’t be so wound up about it, but it really does grind our gears when the company goes into overkill with these kinds of things.
#1 Big Risk
WrestleMania is often an event that will sell itself based on name value alone – so why on earth does WWE risk how many people will tune into it by hosting an often poor pay per view just a month prior?
Based on the recent evidence there’s a good chance people have tuned into Fastlane, only to see that things aren’t looking too promising so close to WrestleMania.
If you don't give fans something to be excited about when they’re forking out their own hard earned money to view the product, then you’re digging your own grave.
Still, Mania always seems to pull in the casual fans, so this problem will likely never be addressed.
What makes Sting special? His first AEW opponent opens up RIGHT HERE.
