10 Biggest Winners Of The 2016 WWE Draft (One Year Later)

2. James Ellsworth

james ellsworth
WWE.com

When the superstars of WWE learned their fate on 19 July 2016, not a single individual in the WWE Universe knew who James Ellsworth was. Some may have known Jimmy Dream, a 14 year veteran of various independent promotions in the middle of America. Dream wrestled sporadically in Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. That was about that.

On 25 July, Braun Strowman easily vanquished an anonymous local talent with no chin. WWE was seemingly bringing back squash matches in order to help get Strowman and Nia Jax over as monsters, and for the most part it worked. Nobody in their right mind could have imagined the year that that Chinless Wonder would then go on to have, however.

If ever you wanted to see the power of the internet in modern day professional wrestling, James Ellsworth is a great example. The hardcore fanbase demanded more of Ellsworth, and more of Ellsworth they got. He went on to defeat AJ Styles on three separate occasions, earning himself a WWE Championship match in the process.

James Ellsworth was 100% anonymous this time last year. The WWE Draft changed his life forever.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.