Return Of The King

The WWE will be bringing back the King of the Ring tournament at next week's Monday Night Raw.

The episode of Raw is a special three hour edition and will contain the entire tournament which will be the first time since 1995 that the company has held the tournament in one night.

The King of the Ring tournament started life on regular house shows in the late eighties but became a regular pay-per-view event in 1993. This continued until a number of years ago when the King of the Ring PPV was abolished.

The problem with the King of the Ring event was that in 1996 and beyond the company realised that it would be easier to have the first few rounds on television so they would have a match or two on each episode of their shows in the build-up to the event. They would then have the semi-final and final on the live pay-per-view broadcast and fill the rest of the card with regular matches.

I lost interest with the King of the Ring format once they stopped doing all the matches in one night so I am looking forward to see how it is done next week.

The last time the WWE brought back the tournament was on the Smackdown brand in 2006. The eventual winner - Booker T - became one of the top heels in the company but ended up leaving them in the latter part of 2007. He now wrestles for TNA.