Interactive pay-per-view in which fans vote on certain aspects of the matches
WWE Cyber Sunday (originally known as WWE Taboo Tuesday) was an annual professional wrestlingpay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. Established in 2004, the event was originally called Taboo Tuesday as it was held on Tuesdays. In 2006, the event was moved to the more traditional Sunday night for PPVs and was renamed to Cyber Sunday. The theme of the event was the ability for fans to vote on certain aspects of every match, using their personal computers and text messaging via mobile phones. The voting typically began in the middle of an episode of Raw a few weeks beforehand and ended during the pay-per-view, often moments before the match was slated to begin. Because of this, the event was billed as an "interactive pay-per-view."
During the event's first two years as Taboo Tuesday, it was held exclusively for wrestlers from the Rawbrand. The 2006 event, which was the first held as Cyber Sunday, was also Raw-exclusive. Following WrestleMania 23 in 2007, however, brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued, thus the events in 2007 and 2008 featured the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands. The event was discontinued and replaced by Bragging Rights in 2009. The event was revived as an NXT television special in 2022, but not branded as Taboo Tuesday.
History
The event's logo when it was called Taboo Tuesday in 2004–2005
To coincide with the brand extension, in which the promotion divided its roster into brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform, the inaugural event was held exclusively for the Raw brand. Taboo Tuesday returned in 2005, but was pushed back to early November and was also Raw-exclusive.[3] In 2006, which was again Raw-exclusive and held in November, the show was moved to a more traditional Sunday night slot—alleviating problems with the taping schedule of SmackDown!, usually held on Tuesdays. As a result, the event was renamed to Cyber Sunday.[4] Following WrestleMania 23 in April 2007, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive PPVs, thus the 2007 and 2008 events, which were both held in October, featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands.[5][6][7] In 2009, the event's pay-per-view slot was replaced by Annihilation then later renamed to Bragging Rights.[8][9]
Almost a decade after the discontinuation of the PPV, elements of this event were incorporated into NXT's television program for its NXT 2.0 one-year anniversary special but the event is not called Taboo Tuesday.[10]
Concept
The most distinctive feature of the event was the ability for fans to vote on certain aspects of every match, using their personal computers and text messaging via mobile phones. The voting typically began in the middle of an episode of Raw a few weeks beforehand and ended during the pay-per-view, often moments before the match was slated to begin. Because of this, the event was billed as an "interactive pay-per-view."[2] For the first four events, voting was made online through WWE.com, with the official tagline for the PPV being "Log On. Take Over."[11][3][4][6] In 2008, however, this was replaced by votes through text messaging, but this was only available to United States mobile carriers. However, the match between The Undertaker and Big Show was made universal, as fans were allowed to vote for the match stipulation on WWE.com.[7] After Cyber Sunday was discontinued, the fan interaction aspects of the pay-per-view were incorporated into Raw as WWEActive (originally RawActive) for some Raw episodes, which was eventually dropped altogether.[12]
^ abTarlach, Gemma (2004-10-18). "Choose and Bruise Taboo Tuesday gives WWE fans a chance to have a say in the ring action". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 01.
