10 Fascinating Facts About WWE In 2017
Goldberg's entire comeback was shorter than Vince McMahon's backstage rants. WWE in 2017!
If you thought 2019 was peak-late era Vince McMahon tyranny, then just wait until you hear some of the backstage shenanigans from 2017. The then-WWE boss was on the warpath. He chewed wrestlers out for having the "worst WrestleMania matches in history", and forced others to do unsavoury promos or get the hell out of his building.
Need something brighter after that? 2017 had you covered there too.
Bill Goldberg's comeback the previous year had been an unexpected treat, and the former WCW man would ride that train all the way to more merriment at 'Mania 33. Unfortunately, WWE's re-obsession with the squash artist meant there was some collateral, but even that made company history.
Speaking of WrestleMania - the iconic event series changed forever when WWE's party rocked up to Orlando in April 2017. Someone ever-present was suddenly absent. He made more appearances on the famous pay-per-view than Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker and literally everyone else without wrestling one match.
Backstage heat, unintentionally hilarious production at the Royal Rumble and even legends apologising for crappy performances. Yep, 2017 had a little bit of everything.
It's facts time.
10. WWE Hid Carts At Royal Rumble
This is a funny one to kick off with.
Select wrestlers like Big Show, Braun Strowman, Mark Henry and others were literally carted to the ring instead of walking down the lengthy aisle way at the Alamodome for Royal Rumble 2017. WWE didn’t show this on camera though, because it looked silly. That meant Kevin Dunn’s production crew had to get creative and conveniently ignore those entrances, but fan pics did pop up on Twitter.
Everyone got a good laugh out of it at the time, but the mini-carts were quickly forgotten. They've been used again too, although WWE keeps them off-screen for obvious reasons. After all, it'd look rather lazy if Braun was entering the Rumble on a borderline Segway, eh? Kinda smashes his aura a little bit!
Even Big E got to ride to the ring for his Rumble showing. Sure, the aisle for that 2017 Rumble was a long one, but just imagine the outbursts of laughter once fans saw that back-to-back entrants were riding out on carts. WWE didn't even use those mini-rings from old WrestleManias. The spoilsports.