13 WWE Things Happening Right Now You Wouldn’t Have Believed 12 Months Ago
Returns, departures, new faces and some totally unexpected champions...
Looking back, it’s been a pretty crazy year in WWE.
Granted, no year in the company is a particularly conventional one, what with the wacky cast of an undead mortician, a supernatural cult leader and a COO who’s allowed to beat up his subordinates. Still, even by WWE’s standards, 2016 has been fairly remarkable year—and there’s still time for plenty more to come.
Perhaps this is the kind of article that should have been saved for the end of the year, but at the rate we’re going there’ll probably be enough material for a follow-up piece in a couple of months’ time.
From the glut of injuries that saw scripts being rewritten left, right and centre, to the contingency plans that were put in place as a result—and not to mention some of the company’s backstage goings on—we’ve seen all sorts of unexpected developments that, frankly, you’d scarcely have believed if they'd been suggested this time last year.
This article looks back at some of the most noteworthy examples of these developments, as we count down 13 things in WWE that you wouldn’t have believed 12 months ago.
13. NJPW Influx
First things first, if you’d have told me 12 months ago that we’d soon be seeing Shinsuke Nakamura, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson plying their trade in WWE, I’d probably have called you a stupid idiot.
This time last year, the trio were amongst the hottest commodities in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Nakamura was enjoying his fifth reign as IWGP Intercontinental Champion, while Gallows and Anderson were tearing it up with Bullet Club and in possession of the IWGP Tag Team belts. Furthermore, besides a brief excursion in 2006, Nakamura had been with the company for over 13 years while Anderson had been there since 2008; the two were pretty much seen as lifers.
In January of this year though, WWE dropped a huge surprise as they embarked on an all-out raid of NJPW, bringing Nakamura, Gallows and Anderson stateside and dealing the Japanese promotion a major blow. Surprising? Yes, but undeserved? No way, Jose.