The “March To Wrestlemania” special set to air on the WWE Network on Saturday, March 12th has now been titled WWE Roadblock. Oh and the headline match? Triple H defends the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match for the first time, and he’s against Dean Ambrose.
So yeah, that’s a pretty big match and it will most likely be excellent. Some arguments against the match can be made, as can some supporting the match, but the match itself isn’t so much what this article is about, although in part it is.
WWE Roadblock will be the third Network special, if you don’t count the Elimination Chamber event we had last year. However, this show seems to have more in common with the Elimination Chamber event than it did with Beast in the East or the Madison Square Garden show. While both the Japan and New York shows received a little bit of hype on TV, neither of them had such a colossal main event. Add in another episode of RAW and two Smackdown episodes to still hype it and suddenly this is looking like a much more major event.
Not too long ago, Jon Potter made a poll asking whether fans would like to see more special events like these and less traditional pay-per-views. This was in response to a rumor that WWE may consider cutting back on regular pay-per-view events to allow more time to build while plugging in specials more regularly.
I think this could be a big test on that front. Could we be seeing how specials with a little more hype fare? I think it is possible, especially if they’re doing a match as big as Dean Ambrose vs. Triple H. And if not, is there still a place for hyped specials like this one? I believe so. I am someone who absolutely believes in the idea of specials that may not be groundbreaking or earth shattering, but they can advance storylines and give the subscriber even more value while giving those who aren’t subscribed more incentive.
This, in particular, means one to four episodes of Saturday Night’s Main Event per year and maybe even a Clash of the Champions. I believe at least one SNME airing a week or two before Wrestlemania, perhaps like this event will, would be an excellent idea going forward. And this, along with a Clash of the Champions, could be even more appealing supposing the rumored brand split did occur. Seeing talent together that normally wouldn’t be will certainly have an appeal.
The question this all leads to is how much is too much? Supposing the pay-per-view model remains as it is, too many live specials will only serve to water down the rosters. Again, I think this is where both gimmicks and a brand split would benefit as these would mean more as a result. But there is one other point.
I don’t believe every special needs a ton of hype. The Beast in the East special had a lot of love and part of that love was the fact that it felt different. It wasn’t overhyped by the “WWE machine”. Michael Cole wasn’t putting over one thousand different things at once and instead was allowed to call the action. The production was different. All of this amounts to something that I think the company can really benefit from: low key special events. Essentially house shows set to air with commentary. This won’t appeal to everybody, but it would appeal to plenty.
Now all of these ideas aren’t perfect. If a brand split did occur and we did up the amount of shows, we would obviously need a lot of call ups to help flesh out the rosters, but with NXT being too full of talent as it is, that certainly is a possibility.
So what do you think? Are you interested in WWE Roadblock and Triple H vs. Dean Ambrose? Do you want more WWE Network specials and if so what themes would you be interested in? Let us know in the comments section! And as always, stick to WWE Network News for the latest WWE Network news, rumors, reviews, and more!