10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 2012
CM Punk spends a year as WWE Champion, but what other records did he break?
It's a freezing cold take, this, but WWE desperately needs to do something about the look and feel of its product.
At some point in 2021 (please, dear god please), Raw and SmackDown will return to arenas filled with buzzing fans rather than the faint buzz of cheer.wav and the hundred odd video screens that make up their ThunderDome aesthetic.
This presents them with an exciting opportunity. It is perfectly okay to acknowledge aesthetic rethinks as Vince McMahon did in 1997, but WWE stubbornness to accept its failings means such a thing has been unlikely ever since. The pandemic could be the trojan horse for change - the red and blue brands can be totally different in the new normal, and McMahon could well say the fresh coat of paint was part of a celebration rather than necessary change. How nice would that be?
Nice, and, again, necessary. It physically hurts to think about how long ago 2012 actually was, but it stings worse considering just how little about the product's presentation has really shifted since then.
This list recounts a WWE not unlike the one you know today. Can it be nostalgic? As BoJack Horseman's Joseph Sugarman put with debilitating accuracy; "time's arrow never stays still nor reverses. It merely marches forward". That arrow will get you right in the heart if you let it, but does a look back at 2012 feel like one from a cupid, or a killer?
10. Triple H Attempted To Fix Tag Team Wrestling
Yes, that very same Triple H that buried the entire locker room by once noting how nobody else was fit to face The Undertaker at WrestleMania for two years following Shawn Michaels' retirement.
Making baby steps into the developmental role he'd eventually take from John Laurinaitis, 'The Game' spent some time behind the scenes in 2012 trying to rehabilitate the perpetually browbeaten doubles division.
Backstage news emerging from all the usual places at the time confirmed that Hunter was at the heart of an eight-team tournament that featured units including Rey Mysterio & Sin Cara, The Usos, Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow and The Prime Time Players.
With the hugely popular Team Hell No typically atop the pile, it even appeared at points as if it was actually working. But if there's one thing as cyclical as the wrestling industry itself, it's Vince McMahon's undulating interest in tag team wrestling.
Bryan's popularity carried the status of the belts a little longer, but credible competition crumbled beneath the surface. It'd be years before Hunter's NXT golden era brought the art form back again.