The 2015 King of the Ring was a professional wrestling event produced by WWE. It was the 11th King of the Ring event and was held on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, at the iWireless Center in Moline, Illinois. Unlike previous King of the Ring events, which aired on traditional pay-per-view (PPV) from 1993 to 2002, the 2015 event was livestreamed exclusively on WWE's online service, the WWE Network, which made it the first King of the Ring event to air on the platform, as well as the first dedicated King of the Ring event since 2002. The event featured the semifinals and finals of the 20th King of the Ring tournament, which was won by Bad News Barrett, who defeated Neville in the final and subsequently became known as King Barrett.
The opening round matches for the tournament were held on the April 27, 2015, episode of Monday Night Raw, which aired on the USA Network from the Resch Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This was the first tournament held since 2010 and the last to have a separate dedicated event until 2024; the event was planned to be revived in 2023 but was canceled and rescheduled for 2024 titled King and Queen of the Ring to incorporate the women's Queen of the Ring tournament, which was established as a female counterpart in 2021. This was also the only tournament held since the end of the first brand extension in 2011, which was reintroduced in 2016.
Background
The King of the Ring tournament is a single-elimination tournament that was established by WWE in 1985 with the winner being crowned "King of the Ring." It was held annually until 1991, with the exception of 1990. These early tournaments were held as special non-televised house shows and were held when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, renamed to WWE in 2002).[1] In 1993, the promotion began to produce the King of the Ring tournament as a self-titled pay-per-view (PPV). Unlike the previous non-televised events, the PPV did not feature all of the tournament's matches. Instead, several of the qualifying matches preceded the event with the final few matches then taking place at the pay-per-view. There were also other matches that took place at the event as it was a traditional three-hour pay-per-view.[2] The King of the Ring PPV was considered one of the promotion's "Big Five" PPVs, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble.[3]
King of the Ring continued as the annual June PPV until the 2002 event, which was the final King of the Ring produced as a PPV.[4] Following the conclusion of the PPV chronology, the tournament began to be held periodically every few years, first making its return in 2006, which was held exclusively for wrestlers from the SmackDown!brand—the 2008 and 2010 tournaments also featured wrestlers from WWE's other brands. In April 2011, WWE ceased using its full name of World Wrestling Entertainment with "WWE" becoming an orphaned initialism.[5] That August, the brand extension ended with both the Raw and SmackDown television shows featuring the full main roster. The 2015 tournament was the 20th King of the Ring tournament. It was held over two nights. The opening round matches were held on the April 27, 2015, episode of Raw, which aired on the USA Network from the Resch Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The semifinals and final were then held the following day on April 28 from the iWireless Center in Moline, Illinois before a SmackDown taping and aired live on WWE's livestreaming service, the WWE Network, which launched in February 2014. It was the first King of the Ring to have a separate dedicated event since the 2002 PPV, as well as the first to air on the WWE Network.[6][7]
In July 2016, the brand extension was reinstated, with WWE's main roster again divided between the Raw and SmackDown brands.[8] The next King of the Ring tournament was then held in 2019 and was an interbrand tournament, featuring wrestlers from both brands. Each brand had a separate bracket, and the winners of each bracket faced off in the tournament final. Qualifying matches for the 2019 tournament began in August and took place across episodes of Raw and SmackDown. The tournament final was originally scheduled to be held at that year's Clash of Champions PPV, but was rescheduled for the following night's Raw on September 16, 2019.[1][9][10]
After eight years, the event was planned to return to PPV and livestreaming in 2023, with that year's event rebranded as "King and Queen of the Ring" to incorporate the women's Queen's Crown tournament that was established in 2021.[11] However, on April 13, it was revealed that WWE decided to scrap the revival and would instead hold Night of Champions, thus reviving the Night of Champions event.[12] It was reported that the decision to change the event to Night of Champions was a creative choice to revive and bring that event to an international market,[13] as well as to please business partners in Saudi Arabia and add intrigue to the show with the crowning of a new World Heavyweight Champion.[14]Fightful later reported that WWE did not have plans to reschedule King and Queen of the Ring for later that year, but the event could possibly be used for a future Saudi Arabian show.[15]King and Queen of the Ring was then rescheduled for Saudi Arabia in May 2024.[16]
^Sullivan, Kevin (November 23, 2010). The WWE Championship: A Look Back at the Rich History of the WWE Championship. Gallery Books. p. 124. ISBN9781439193211. At the time, SummerSlam was one of WWE's "big five" Pay-Per-Views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, and Survivor Series were the others), ...
^Sacco, Justine; Weitz, Michael (April 7, 2011). "The New WWE" (Press release). Connecticut: WWE. Archived from the original on May 3, 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
