King of the Ring


King of the Ring was a professional wrestling pay-per-view and WWE Network event series held by WWE. The main focus was the King of the Ring tournament which was previously held annually from 1985 to 1991, with the exception of 1990. In 2003, the event's pay-per-view slot was replaced by Bad Blood.
The tournament endured a four-year hiatus until its return in 2006 as an exclusive tournament of the SmackDown brand. The tournament returned as an inter-brand occurrence for both SmackDown and Raw in 2010 and 2019. King of the Ring was a tri-branded tournament, also featuring ECW wrestlers, in 2008 and a non-branded tournament in 2015.

History

The King of the Ring was an event in which typically sixteen wrestlers wrestled in a one-on-one single elimination bracket. When a wrestler wins a match in the bracket, he advances to take on another wrestler who has also won. The final few matches would then take place at that year's King of the Ring event. The winner of the final match is officially crowned the King of the Ring. There were also other matches that took place at the King of the Ring event since it was a traditional three-hour pay-per-view. The King of the Ring pay-per-view was considered one of the WWE's "Big Five" events of the year, along with the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series, up until its disestablishment after the 2002 event.
The King of the Ring was the only one of the WWE's "Big Five" pay-per-view events to never be hosted at least once at Madison Square Garden.

King of the Ring event dates and venues