Cleopatra's Egg & 9 Other Storylines That Wasted Time On PPVs

WWE didn’t invent the modern pay-per-view (Starrcade came first) but they sure helped craft the model for it. For better or worse, WWE set the tone for how a huge PPV show should work emulated from WCW to AEW. Of course, some shows are far better than others and it’s often best to have a show packed with just wrestling, good or bad. Yet too many promotions try to fill out the time with some stuff that’s not just bad but downright distracting from the action.

It’s one thing to have a celebrity appearance or some backstage antics. It’s another to bring an entire show to a screeching halt for some idiotic bit that doesn’t serve the wrestlers, the fans hate and mars the whole card. While WWE is definitely major culprits, there’s plenty from other promotions of stuff that had no business on a show fans paid good money for. These are just ten stupid time-wasting segments on major PPVs to show how the “entertainment” part of the business overwhelms the “sports” too much.

10 The “Presidential” Visit - WrestleMania 10

Long before he and a certain future President became pals, Vince McMahon kept trying to land another politician. In the build to Wrestlemania 10, WWE made it sound like President Bill Clinton would be attending the show. The White House had to openly state that no, the President was just slightly too busy to participate in a wrestling event, but WWE pushed it.

Out came a very lame Clinton impersonator who was treated like he was the real thing in interviews and having Irwin R. Schyster call him out on his tax program. There is nothing Presidential about this visit.

9 WWE’s Got Talent - WrestleMania 27

WWE has a habit of filling Wrestlemania with some time-wasting stuff in the last decade. But this was one of the worst, an idea that might have been okay for RAW in the “guest host” period but not the biggest show of the year. Snoop Dogg had various superstars try to do music acts to join his posse.

Okay, William Regal attempting gangsta rap was funny, but the Great Khali/Beth Phoenix duet was awful, Zack Ryder had a coconut smashed against his head by Roddy Piper and Hornswoggle and the Bella Twins...ugh. It shows that fans enjoy actual wrestling for WrestleMania.

8 The Gobbledy Gooker - Survivor Series 1990

Few times has WWE hyped up something with such a lame payoff as this. For weeks, TV programming pushed a huge mysterious egg, promising some sort of epic surprise inside it. Speculation buzzed until at the Survivor Series, it hatched to reveal...a man in the dumbest idea of a turkey costume imaginable.

The Gobbledy Gooker (none other than Hector Guerrero) and Gene Okerlund did a dumb dance to a take on “Turkey in the Straw,” as the fans just booed this ridiculous sight. Amazingly, the idea was for the Undertaker to be in the egg and talk about a lucky break to avoid it.

7 Robocop Saves Sting - Capital Combat 1990

It’s never fun when your #1 babyface goes out to injury just before he’s to win the World title. That was WCW’s quandary in 1990 as they still needed Sting to pop ratings while he recovered from a knee injury. So for Capitol Combat, Sting was rushed by the Horsemen who tossed him into a small cage.

Coming out... very, very slowly... was Robocop to promote an upcoming movie sequel. Somehow, the Horsemen were afraid enough to leave as Robocop tore open the cage door to free Sting. Maybe Sting was better off just staying home.

6 Redneck Triathlon - Bad Blood 2003

Steve Austin is an icon for WWE but his last few years weren’t his best. Established as co-RAW General Manager, Austin and Eric Bischoff were at odds constantly. They decided to settle it with a competition at Bad Blood 2003.

The “Redneck Trialtohin” started with Austin winning a belching contest. The second round was to be a pie-eating contest and somehow ended with Austin Stunning Mae Young. Then a singing content turned into Austin dumping Bischoff into a pigpen. The entire thing dragged an already rough show to a major mess.

5 Black Scorpion Magic Tricks - Halloween Havoc 1990

When Sting won the NWA World title in 1990, it should have been the greatest arc of his career. But booker Ole Anderson didn’t think he had any worthy challengers for Sting, so he created his own. The Black Scorpion was a mysterious masked figure making weird threats against Sting and hinting at a dark past.

At Halloween Havoc, the Scorpion struck by….taking a woman from the audience and putting her in the old “vanishing box” trick. Yes, this wicked heel was acting like a poor man’s David Copperfield. Little wonder this angle was so bad.

4 Instant Replay Debate - WrestleMania 7

Way back when, WWE would have “intermissions” for some of the bigger PPVs. Wrestlemania VII didn’t take the time for promos or even a musical performance. Instead, Vince McMahon hosted a “debate” on instant replay with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and NFL analyst Paul Maguire.

There was some humor in Vince being shocked at Steinbrenner telling him to fire people who screwed up, but then the Bushwhackers showed up in a “replay room” covered in tape. With his face in his hands, Bobby Heenan summed up the feeling of fans in a segment so bad that WWE edited it out of home releases for years.

3 Cookiegate - Turning Point 2004

A key issue with TNA has always been thinking they’re bigger than they are. That was proven at their second-even three-hour PPV as a few weeks earlier, some TNA wrestlers “crashed” a commercial WWE was filming in Orlando.

TNA acted like this was bigger than DX invading Nitro, and so throughout this show, bad Vince McMahon and Triple H impersonators would be shown backstage threatening anyone airing the tape, and “Triple H” beat up by a little person. After all that, the tape finally aired, just a blurry bit where no WWE guys were shown. Little wonder it was so easy to mock TNA.

2 Monster Truck Fight - Halloween Havoc 1995

Of all the dumb things to happen in the early Hogan era of WCW, this may well be the topper. It wasn’t enough for Hogan and the Giant to face off the main event of this PPV. Before that, they had to have a fight with giant monster trucks on the roof of the arena.

The clash ended with Hogan (of course) winning so he and the Giant could brawl for a few minutes more. That ended with Hogan managing to dump the Giant over the roof, only for him to come out to the match completely unharmed. The amazing part was that, as dumb and wasteful as it was, the truck match was probably better than the pair’s horrible main event.

1 Cleopatra’s Egg - Survivor Series 2021

WWE has long attempted to do tie-ins to popular media, yet this was still a reach. Throughout Survivor Series, Vince McMahon was obsessed with a golden egg he claimed was a treasure from Cleopatra. This was the MacGuffin from the recent Dwayne Johnson/Ryan Reynolds movie Red Notice.

It was unclear if this was indeed the actual treasured egg or just Vince conned into thinking he’d bought it, but several moments of a major PPV were spent with backstage antics of the egg going missing and Vince out to find it. It kept looking like an appearance from The Rock was coming, but it didn’t happen and that the payoff was on the following RAW made it even dumber.