Taboo Tuesday (2005)

The 2005 Taboo Tuesday was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was the second annual Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday and took place on November 1, 2005, at the iPayOne Center in San Diego, California, held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw brand division. The theme of the event was that fans were given the chance to vote on stipulations for the matches. The voting for the event started on October 24, 2005, and ended during the event. It was also the final event titled Taboo Tuesday, as the following year, the event was moved to the traditional Sunday nights for PPVs and was renamed as Cyber Sunday.

Eight professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's card. The main event was a triple threat match, for the WWE Championship. In this match, John Cena defeated Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels to retain his title. Two bouts were featured on the undercard. In a retrospective singles match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship, Ric Flair defeated Triple H in a Steel Cage match, in which Flair won by escaping the cage and having both feet touch the arena floor. The other featured an interpromotional tag team match where Rey Mysterio and Matt Hardy (SmackDown!) defeated Chris Masters and Snitsky (Raw).

Taboo Tuesday received 174,000 pay-per-view buys, which was the same amount as the previous year's event. The professional wrestling section of the Canadian Online Explorer website rated the entire event 7 out of 10 stars, higher than the 2004 event rating of 5 out of 10 stars.

In 2004, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) held an event entitled Taboo Tuesday. It was the first regularly scheduled pay-per-view by WWE on a Tuesday since 1991's This Tuesday in Texas, the first regularly scheduled non-Sunday pay-per-view since the 1994 Survivor Series, and the first non-Sunday pay-per-view of any kind since In Your House 8: Beware of Dog 2 in 1996. The event was also produced exclusively for wrestlers of the Raw brand. A unique feature of the event was the ability for fans to vote on certain aspects of every match. Because of this, the event was billed as an "interactive pay-per-view". The 2005 event, which was also a Raw-exclusive PPV, was held on November 1 at the iPayOne Center in San Diego, California. It was the second Taboo Tuesday event, thus establishing the interactive PPV as an annual event for the promotion.

Unlike other WWE pay-per-views, where stipulations were determined by WWE's creative staff, this was the second event where stipulations for matches were determined by votes from WWE fans conducted on WWE's official website. The event was scheduled to feature eight professional wrestling matches. Although the stipulations resulted from votes by WWE fans, different wrestlers were involved in pre-existing scripted feuds, plots and storylines, which led to scheduled matches in which WWE fans could vote upon stipulations.

The main event scripted into Taboo Tuesday was between John Cena and Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship, in which Cena would also defend the title against the fans' choice of three possible opponents: Kane, The Big Show, and Shawn Michaels. The buildup to the match began at Unforgiven, Raw's previous pay-per-view event, in which Cena intentionally disqualified himself. In WWE, a championship cannot change hands via count-out or disqualification, as a result, Cena retained the title. On the October 17 episode of Raw, one of WWE's primary television programs, General manager Eric Bischoff, a portrayed match maker and rules enforcer, announced that a standard match involving three wrestlers, termed as a Triple Threat match, for the WWE Championship, would take place between Cena, Angle and the fans' choice at Taboo Tuesday. Bischoff was scripted to promote three series of qualifying matches, in which the winner would receive a spot on the ballot as a potential challenger to Cena and Angle. The winners were Kane, The Big Show, and Shawn Michaels. The following week, a Triple Threat match was scheduled between the three competitors. Michaels won the match after he delivered a superkick to Big Show and Kane and pinned the Big Show for the win. The following week, Bischoff announced a singles match between Cena and Michaels. Late in the match, Angle attacked both Cena and Michaels. Cena, however, retaliated and lifted Angle up on his shoulders, but Michaels managed to deliver a superkick to Cena.

One of the featured preliminary matches was between Ric Flair versus Triple H for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. On the October 3 episode of Raw, WWE Homecoming, Triple H returned after a four-month hiatus. He took part in a match, teaming up with Flair, who was a fan favorite during Triple H's absence, to take on Chris Masters and Carlito. The duo defeated Masters and Carlito; after the match, Triple H turned on Flair and hit him with a sledgehammer and officially marked the end of Evolution after more than two years since 2003. The following week, Triple H explained his actions, saying he saw that Flair had become mediocre when he was spat at and when he won the Intercontinental title. Triple H continued to say that he needed to end Flair's career so his memories of Flair would not be tarnished. On the October 24 episode of Raw, a singles match was scheduled between Flair and Triple H at Taboo Tuesday, in which the fans would be given the opportunity to choose the type of match they compete in. The choice of the matches were a regular match, submission match, or a Steel Cage match for the Intercontinental title.

Another preliminary match was between the Raw and SmackDown! brands. The feud began on the October 3 episode of Raw, in which WWE Chairman Vince McMahon wanted a match between SmackDown! wrestlers on the program. A match was scheduled, but before it could get underway, Eric Bischoff announced that McMahon had left the arena, thus leaving himself in charge. Seeing SmackDown! as inferior, Bischoff stopped the match by turning off the lights and going to a commercial break. At the end of the broadcast, SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long, led SmackDown! superstars to the ring, and they fought with Raw superstars. On the October 17 episode of Raw, John "Bradshaw" Layfield's (JBL) (SmackDown!) entrance music played during Edge's (Raw) match, the distraction caused Edge to lose the match. As part of the storyline, Edge and Chris Masters showed up to the SmackDown! program on the October 21 episode, in which they interfered in a match between JBL and Rey Mysterio Jr., where they assaulted Mysterio. On the October 24 episode of Raw, a match was made between Edge and Masters, and two of five SmackDown! superstars chosen by the fans, and Mysterio attacked Edge from behind. The following week, Bischoff invited Mysterio to the Raw program to take the Master Lock Challenge, a challenge where the wrestler must break free from Masters' swinging full nelson submission hold, which he calls the Master Lock. Mysterio, however, attacked Masters instead, which caused Bischoff to call for other Raw superstars. Long called for SmackDown! superstars, and they fought until the Raw roster retreated.