The Best Bad Blood PPVs (Ranked) as WWE brings it back this October

WWE are set to bring back the Bad Blood event in October as a Premium Live Event, but what are the best Bad Blood PPV shows from the past?

Here, I’ll be looking at the three previous events that the company produced under the BB banner and how they fared in the mid-to-late nineties.

WWF In Your House 18: Badd Blood, WWE Bad Blood 2003 and WWE Bad Blood 2004 are the only previous incarnations of the show to take place on PPV, and when I say that they were varied in quality, I REALLY mean it.

WWE Bad Blood 2003 – Cagematch Rating 5.74 (WORST)

2003 was a bizarre time in WWE, to say the least. With the brand split having taken place in 2002, the company had now decided to split the B-level individual PPVs between RAW and SmackDown, and beyond Insurrextion (which was a UK-only PPV), this was the first RAW-branded PPV event to take place.

In terms of match quality, there really wasn’t a whole lot going on on the undercard. The Dudley Boyz took on Christopher Nowinski and Rodney Mack in the opening match and while the crowd was into the ECW legends, it was still about as middling as it gets over 7 minutes. Beyond that, having to then watch Stone Cold Steve Austin taking on Eric Bischoff in a burping contest would set the tone for a very forgettable PPV event.

The final three matches of the show certainly upped the quality, with Goldberg taking on Chris Jericho, Ric Flair facing Shawn Michaels and Triple H defending his World Heavyweight Championship against Kevin Nash in the Hell in a Cell. It’s quite incredible looking back that WWE really decided to run with the Invasion storyline in 2001 when they did, with this card on paper looking more like WCW vs WWF than Survivor Series in 2001.

It’s a show worth watching as a microcosm of what WWE was after the Attitude Era and around the start of the Ruthless Aggression era, but don’t expect to come into this with some bangers over the two and a half hour runtime.

Bad Blood 2003 Results and Match Lengths

WWF In Your House 18: Badd Blood – Cagematch Rating 6.14

If you ever need to look up the definition of a one-match show, it is 100% the 18th WWF In Your House pay-per-view which saw Shawn Michaels take on The Undertaker in the first-ever Hell in a Cell match to main event. I don’t care that they spelt Bad with two D’s here, it absolutely counts when ranking Bad Blood PPV shows. 

In terms of matches on this list, nothing comes even close to ‘Taker vs HBK, as that first-ever Cell match basically set the tone for what the match could and would be over the next decade at least. Without this match between these two genuine living legends, the HIAC gimmick would’ve died there and then, which depending on your viewpoint is either a good or a bad thing.

The undercard for this is so weak it is unreal, even with Bret Hart and The Bulldog in the penultimate match being unable to drag out a decent match against The Patriot and Vader which went TWENTY THREE MINUTES (why!?).

Shawn vs ‘Taker is literally the only thing on this quite frankly terrible PPV card that completely saves it, and that is why is comes in just over Bad Blood 2003 in the ranking.

In Your House 18 Results and Match Lengths

WWE Bad Blood 2004 – Cagematch Rating 6.33 (BEST)

Bad Blood 2004 manages to come in at the top of this list purely because the overall card JUST manages to be better than ‘03 and ‘97, with again nothing topping the first-ever Hell in a Cell match. Again a RAW-only branded pay-per-view card, this show had Chris Benoit pulling double-duty in the opening match alongside Edge to face La Résistance and then again in the penultimate match of the night to defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Kane.

Triple H and Shawn Michaels, the two men that Benoit defeated in the main event of WrestleMania just a few months prior, would main event in the Hell in a Cell structure. As proof that longer does not always mean better, HBK and Hunter would go nearly 50 minutes in their Hell match, nearly double the time that ‘Taker and Shawn had back in 1997…but try as they might they just could not get to the epic levels that the In Your House match set.

It is really the undercard that puts this show to the top of the pile, with Randy Orton vs Shelton Benjamin, Chris Benoit & Edge facing La Resistance and Chris Benoit beating Kane in for the World Title being far better than anything involving The Godwinns.

Bad Blood 2004 Results and Match Lengths

Hopefully, WWE Bad Blood 2024 will surpass these three shows, even if they decide not to run with a Hell in a Cell match on the card (I’m expecting there will be two though: CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre and Rhea Ripley vs Liv Morgan).

Jake Skudder

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