No Mercy Main Event Scrapped For Fatal Four-Way
With knowing that they are headed for what is sure to be the worst drawing PPV event of 2006, the WWE announced on their website on Tuesday that Sunday's No Mercy main event has been scrapped, and a fatal four-way has been signed for the World Heavyweight Title. The original match between champion King Booker and Bobby Lashley has been changed to now including former champ Batista and one-half of Booker's "court" in Finley.
This move basically means that the company could not get enough fans nor those behind the scene into thinking that a Lashley-Booker match could possibly carry a PPV. In reality, it cannot, which has been the argument from day one of when they announced the match. The TV ads that have been running all over the country by mistake the last 10 days have Batista and Booker as the main event, showing how up in the air this main event was just as of a month ago, when the company gets ready to push the next months PPV.
While I think the entire time they have pondered keeping the belt on Booker, this type of panic booking to changing the main event of a PPV just five days before the match can almost assure that they are going to keep the belt with Booker for at least another month. If Lashley was to win it, why wouldn't they just keep it a singles match, and if Batista was to win it, why would they have scrapped the mis-promoted match between the two for this PPV? And of course we all know that Finley is simply in there to fill the void as the second heel in the match.
I can't remember the last time a main event of a PPV has been changed this late in the game. Possibly back in 99 at Survivor Series when it was scheduled to be Champion HHH vs The Rock vs Steve Austin in a three-way for the belt. Austin could not compete due to his neck injury that was going to require major surgery, so they did an angle on Heat that allowed him to get out of the match. They instead added the Big Show to the match, and even allowed him to win the belt to let the fans go home happy.
I'm sure there is a lot more behind the scenes to this decision, and as we get closer to Sunday, I'll try and dig up as many details on it as possible and pass it along in another article.
