10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 2015
6. Ryan Ward's One Full Year With NXT
Lots more to come on NXT's mammoth 2015, and much of it can be credited to celebrated writer Ryan Ward, who spent January 1st to December 31st purely on the black-and-gold brand for the only time in his WWE tenure.
Having worked for the company since 2009, he'd been poached away from SmackDown in 2014 to head up creative on the black-and-gold brand, steering it into and through a period of unprecedented growth. Triple H had taken to signing independent faves for the selfies, but the manner in which their experience blended with maturing Performance Center prospects made for the most diverse and dynamic wrestling show in well over a decade.
Ward's relationship with Hunter and/or the autonomy afforded to him shone through every character. A WWE show was spirited, dramatic, suspenseful and - wildest of all - nice. These were feelings lost by longstanding fans and virtually alien to newer ones, marrying up the freshness of the roster with renewed audience engagement.
Ward was lost back to the main roster in 2016, and with so many call-ups from his time at Full Sail joining him, it rapidly became apparent just how the run had served as the brand's all-important golden era.
And if one show was the celebration of that, it was...