7 Reasons Dean Ambrose Failed As WWE World Champion

3. The WWE Draft

WWE Draft 2016 Seth Rollins Dean Ambrose
WWE.com

It wasn't just his positioning though, the entire WWE Draft hurt Dean Ambrose as WWE World Champion.

He won the title with the draft on the horizon, so the immediate fallout from his win was less about Ambrose as champion and more about the future of the championship itself. WWE already had its big story for the summer, so the relatively smaller story of Ambrose winning the title wasn't entirely necessary.

Except it probably was, and that is the most damning thing regarding Ambrose and his title run. It wasn't one that came about through normal circumstances, but more of a story vehicle. It created question marks over the championship heading into the draft, something that would have been less likely had the title stayed on Reigns or Rollins.

The draft left SmackDown in a weaker position on paper too, which I'll get to shortly. The blue brands two big names (AJ Styles and John Cena) were already tied up with each other, leaving Ambrose as the third most important (at best) man on his brand despite being champion. SmackDown has always been fighting a 'B show' stigma, and Ambrose took this on his own back after the draft.

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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.