King of the Ring (2019)

Last updated
King of the Ring
KOTR19Poster.jpg
Promotional poster featuring the tournament participants
Promotion WWE
Brand(s) Raw
SmackDown
DateAugust 19 – September 16, 2019
CitySee Locations
VenueSee Locations
King of the Ring tournament chronology
← Previous
2015 		Next →
2021
King of the Ring (2019)
Tournament information
Sport Professional wrestling
Location
DatesAugust 19, 2019–September 16, 2019
Tournament
format(s)
 Single elimination tournament
Participants16
Final positions
Champion Baron Corbin
Runner-up Chad Gable
Tournament statistics
Matches played15
←  2015
2021  →

The 2019 King of the Ring was the 21st edition of the King of the Ring tournament produced by WWE and was held for wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. Tournament matches began on the August 19, 2019 episode of Raw and continued to be held across episodes of Raw and SmackDown over the next month. The tournament final was originally scheduled to be held at the Clash of Champions pay-per-view, but was rescheduled for the following night's Raw on September 16, 2019 at the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was the first King of the Ring tournament since 2015 and the first held since the brand extension was reinstated in 2016. The tournament featured 16 wrestlers, evenly divided into two brackets, one for Raw and the other for SmackDown, with the winners of each bracket facing each other in the final. The winner of the 2019 tournament was Baron Corbin from Raw, defeating SmackDown's Chad Gable in the final. Corbin subsequently became known as King Corbin and continued this persona until June 2021.

Contents

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 match 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]

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. [3] 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 August 2011, the brand extension ended with both the Raw and SmackDown television shows featuring the full main roster, but in mid-2016, the brand split was reinstated. [4] On the August 12, 2019 episode of Raw, it was announced that the King of the Ring tournament would be returning for the first time since 2015. [5] [6] Later that night, the competitors for the 21st King of the Ring tournament were confirmed; [7] a few days later, the 16-man bracket was officially revealed, evenly divided between Raw and SmackDown. [8] The tournament began on August 19 and occurred across episodes of Raw and SmackDown, with the winners of each brand's bracket facing off in the final. The final was originally scheduled to occur at the Clash of Champions PPV on September 15, 2019, [9] but was rescheduled for the following night's Raw on September 16 in Knoxville, Tennessee at the Thompson-Boling Arena. [10]

Bracket

Baron Corbin, the winner of the 2019 King of the Ring tournament Baron Corbin WWE Live 2019.jpg
Baron Corbin, the winner of the 2019 King of the Ring tournament
First round
Raw / SmackDown
8/19/19, [11] [12] 8/20/19, [13]
8/26/19, [14] 8/27/19 [15] 		Quarter-finals
Raw / SmackDown
9/2/19, [16] 9/3/19 [17] 		Semi-finals
Raw / SmackDown
9/9/19, [18] 9/10/19 [19] [20] 		Final
Raw
9/16/19 [21]
        
Cesaro 10:00
Samoa Joe Sub
Samoa Joe Draw [lower-alpha 1]
Ricochet 16:00
Ricochet Pin
Drew McIntyre 14:10
Samoa Joe
Ricochet 		14:40
Raw
Baron Corbin Pin [lower-alpha 2]
Cedric Alexander Pin
Sami Zayn 3:35
Cedric Alexander 14:30
Baron Corbin Pin
The Miz 10:00
Baron Corbin Pin
Baron Corbin Pin
Chad Gable 19:10
Kevin Owens 13:25
Elias Pin [lower-alpha 3]
Elias Pin
Ali 11:30
Ali Pin
Buddy Murphy 11:32
Shane McMahon [lower-alpha 4] 8:54 [lower-alpha 5]
SmackDown
Chad Gable Sub [lower-alpha 6]
Chad Gable Pin
Shelton Benjamin 3:52
Chad Gable Pin
Andrade 7:55
Apollo Crews 9:40
Andrade Pin
  1. ↑ Match ended in a double pinfall with both men advancing to the semi-finals.
  2. ↑ This was a triple threat match.
  3. ↑ Shane McMahon made himself special guest referee during the match.
  4. ↑ Elias was forced to withdraw from the tournament due to suffering an ankle injury and McMahon made himself his replacement.
  5. ↑ McMahon made this a two-out-of-three falls match after originally losing to Gable.
  6. ↑ McMahon made Kevin Owens the special guest referee.

    Aftermath

    After winning the tournament, Corbin would dub himself King Corbin [22] and would continue to feud with Chad Gable, the tournament runner-up. At Hell in a Cell, Gable would defeat Corbin. [23] At Corbin's request, Gable was announced as Shorty Gable due to his small stature. Gable would embrace this nickname and later change it further to "Shorty G". [24] Corbin would later defeat Shorty G on the October 11 episode of SmackDown to end the feud. [25]

    In December 2020, King Corbin started a faction with Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake, knighting them as the "Knights of the Lone Wolf" (with lone wolf a reference to his previous nickname), although this would be short-lived as Cutler was released by WWE in February 2021. [26] Corbin's king gimmick ended in June 2021 after he lost his King of the Ring crown in a match to Shinsuke Nakamura, who then took on a king persona, being called King Nakamura; Corbin subsequently reverted to his original ring name, Baron Corbin. [27] On October 8, 2021, just prior to the start of the 2021 tournament that night, Nakamura respectfully relinquished the crown and reverted to his original ring name of Shinsuke Nakamura. [28]

    Locations

    Tournament RoundDate(s)City(s)Venue(s)Event(s)
    FirstAugust 19, 2019 Saint Paul, Minnesota Xcel Energy Center Raw
    August 20, 2019 Sioux Falls, South Dakota Denny Sanford Premier Center SmackDown
    August 26, 2019 New Orleans, Louisiana Smoothie King Center Raw
    August 27, 2019 Baton Rouge, Louisiana Raising Cane's River Center Arena SmackDown
    Quarter-finalsSeptember 2, 2019 Baltimore, Maryland Royal Farms Arena Raw
    September 3, 2019 Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk Scope SmackDown
    Semi-finalsSeptember 9, 2019 New York City [19] [29] Madison Square Garden Raw
    September 10, 2019 SmackDown
    FinalSeptember 16, 2019 Knoxville, Tennessee Thompson-Boling Arena Raw

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    References

    1. ↑ Beaston, Erik (August 18, 2019). "WWE King of the Ring: Everything You Need to Know About Historical Tournament". Bleacher Report . Retrieved April 9, 2021.
    2. ↑ "King of the Ring 1993". Pro Wrestling History. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
    3. ↑ "King of the Ring 2002 results". Online World of Wrestling. June 23, 2002. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
    4. ↑ Pappolla, Ryan. "Draft rules revealed: Everything you need to know about the WWE Draft". WWE. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
    5. ↑ Powell, Jason (August 12, 2019). "8/12 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of Seth Rollins appearing after winning the championship at SummerSlam, Steve Austin checks in, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross vs. The Kabuki Warriors for the WWE Women's Tag Titles, The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler, Drew McIntyre vs. Cederic Alexander". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
    6. ↑ "Se revelan los 16 participantes del WWE King of The Ring 2019". Solowrestling (in Spanish). August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
    7. ↑ Silverstein, Adam (August 12, 2019). "WWE King of the Ring is back: Details, 16 superstars set as event returns for second time since 2010". CBS Sports . Retrieved August 12, 2019.
    8. ↑ "2019 WWE King of the Ring bracket, tournament matches, results, winners, schedule, dates". CBSSports.com. Retrieved 2019-08-19.
    9. ↑ Casey, Connor (September 11, 2019). "King of the Ring Tournament Finals Scrapped From Clash of Champions, Pushed to WWE Raw". ComicBook. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
    10. ↑ Crosby, Jack; Silverstein, Adam (September 16, 2019). "2019 WWE King of the Ring tournament winner, bracket, matches, results, schedule". CBS Sports . Retrieved July 9, 2021.
    11. ↑ Martinez, Phillip (August 12, 2019). "The King of the Ring tournament returns on next week's Monday Night RAW". Newsweek. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
    12. ↑ Powell, Jason (2019-08-19). "8/19 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of AJ Styles vs. Braun Strowman for the U.S. Championship, and Cesaro vs. Samoa Joe and Cedric Alexander vs. Sami Zayn in first round King of the Ring tournament matches". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
    13. ↑ Powell, Jason (August 20, 2019). "8/20 WWE Smackdown Live results: Powell's review of Daniel Bryan vs. Buddy Murphy, Kevin Owens vs. Elias and Apollo Crews vs. Andrade in first round King of the Ring tournament matches". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
    14. ↑ Powell, Jason (August 26, 2019). "8/26 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of Ricochet vs. Drew McIntyre and Baron Corbin vs. The Miz in first round King of the Ring tournament matches, Smackdown Women's Champion Bayley vs. Nikki Cross, the build to Clash of Champions continues". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
    15. ↑ Barnett, Jake (August 27, 2019). "8/27 WWE Smackdown Live Results: Barnett's review of Ali vs. Buddy Murphy and Chad Gable vs. Shelton Benjamin in first round King of the Ring matches, Daniel Bryan and Rowan demand an apology from Roman Reigns". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
    16. ↑ Powell, Jason (September 2, 2019). "9/2 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of Ricochet vs. Samoa Joe and Cedric Alexander vs. Baron Corbin in King of the Ring quarterfinal matches, Rey Mysterio returns, the build to Clash of Champions continues". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
    17. ↑ Powell, Jason (September 3, 2019). "9/3 WWE Smackdown Live Results: Powell's review of Ali vs. Elias and Chad Gable vs. Andrade in quarterfinal King of the Ring tournament matches". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
    18. ↑ Powell, Jason (September 9, 2019). "9/9 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of Steve Austin moderating the Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman contract signing, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks and Bayley, Ricochet vs. Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin in King of the Ring semifinal match, Rey Mysterio vs. Gran Metalik". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
    19. 1 2 "MSG on Twitter: JUST ANNOUNCED: The Semi-Finals of this years #KingOfTheRing Tournament will take place at MSG on the 9/9 Monday Night RAW & 9/10 Smackdown Live!". MSG On Twitter. August 14, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
    20. ↑ Barnett, Jake (September 10, 2019). "9/10 WWE Smackdown Live Results: Barnett's review of Undertaker's appearance, final hype for Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton at WWE Clash of Champions, The Miz vs. Andrade". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
    21. ↑ Powell, Jason (September 16, 2019). "9/16 WWE Raw Results: Powell's review of Chad Gable vs. Baron Corbin in King of the Ring tournament finals, the Street Profits hosting a gender reveal party for Maria Kanellis's baby, the begin of the Hell in a Cell build". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
    22. ↑ Benigno, Anthony. "Baron Corbin def. Chad Gable to win the 2019 King of the Ring Tournament". WWE.com. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
    23. ↑ Benigno, Anthony. "Chad Gable def. King Corbin". WWE. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
    24. ↑ "Chad Gable embraces life as Shorty G: SmackDown, Oct. 18, 2019" . Retrieved October 18, 2019.
    25. ↑ "King Corbin def. Shorty Gable". WWE . Retrieved November 13, 2019.
    26. ↑ HBN Staff (February 4, 2021). "WWE Announces Release Of Steve Cutler". Heel By Nature. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
    27. ↑ Powell, Jason (June 18, 2021). "6/18 WWE Friday Night Smackdown results: Powell's review of Roman Reigns vs. Rey Mysterio in a Hell in a Cell match for the WWE Universal Championship, Big E and Kevin Owens vs. Apollo Crews and Commander Azeez, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. King Corbin in a battle for the crown, Angelo Dawkins vs. Otis". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
    28. ↑ Powell, Jason (October 8, 2021). "10/08 WWE Friday Night Smackdown results: Powell's review of Rey Mysterio vs. Sami Zayn in a King of the Ring tournament match, Liv Morgan vs. Carmella in a Queens Crown tournament match, contract signing for Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair vs. Sasha Banks at WWE Crown Jewel". Pro Wrestling Dot Net. Retrieved October 9, 2021.
    29. ↑ "Madison Square Garden To Host WWE King Of The Ring Semi-Finals". Fightful Wrestling. Retrieved August 15, 2019.


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