There have been 20 WWE pay-per-view events in the last year, all gathering armies of fans to the arenas and around the screens. And while the year was packed with Network additions due to the WWE brand split, only a handful managed to amass attention on the level that transcended into other areas of public life in America. These five most buzzed about WWE events of 2016 didn’t necessarily feature the best matches, but they had the mainstream buzzing about pro wrestling.
The Most Buzzed About WWE Events of 2016
Hell in a Cell
It’s surprising that it took so long for two women to headline a WWE pay-per-view event, but at least it finally happened in 2016 with Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair having the spotlight for their WWE Raw Women’s Championship match. This was the eighth event under the Hell in a Cell chronology, and the most historic one as a truly significant frontier was broken with two divas being the centerpieces of the event poster. Regardless of the action in the ring, 2016’s Hell in a Cell will be remembered always, immortalizing these two women.
Battleground
The focus of the country was on Washington throughout the year, but for one July night the spotlight was on a more entertaining competition in the form of WWE Battleground, one of the year’s best and most talked about WWE events. The hype was strong as it featured Randy Orton’s first appearance after a nine-month injury, and Dean Ambrose successfully retained the WWE Championship in a triple threat match against his former teammates, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, in the main event. Battleground was improved with a six-man tag team match which included A.J. Styles and John Cena, so it’s not surprising that there was a lot of talk about this show.
Royal Rumble
One of the year’s rare locks for one the biggest WWE events didn’t disappoint expectedly and the legacy of Royal Rumble was improved with its 29th iteration. Even with the significance of the Royal Rumble to the organization this was the first RR event in which the contest for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was held after the year 1992! The sheer volume of the wrestlers involved in this type of event guarantees a big buzz to be created around it and when the returning Triple H won the match by eliminating Dean Ambrose, kicking out the defending champion Roman Reigns in the process, the web exploded.
Survivor Series
The clash of huge, both figuratively and literally, legends Brock Lesnar and Goldberg had to be one of the main events in the world of pro wrestling even if it was just a one-fight event. Not only did Goldberg return to the ring after twelve years, but he managed to defeat the modern superstar that is Brock Lesnar in just one minute and 26 seconds! The shock multiplied the attention the November event got and made the 30th iteration of the Survivor Series skyrocket as one of the nation’s main topics, even in that month. The 5-on-5 Survivor Series elimination match between Team SmackDown and Team Raw that lasted for almost an hour was another great moment of the year in pro wrestling, boosting the popularity of this sole event significantly.
WrestleMania 32
There’s no way around WrestleMania, as it is by far WWE’s most recognizable and influential event, and the 32nd edition of it had a great build up to it in the form of an NXT event two days earlier which featured Finn Bálor and Samoa Joe fight. The April event was jam packed filled with some of the biggest names in pro wrestling ever! Roman Reigns was victorious over Triple H to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, Brock Lesnar defeated Dean Ambrose, Charlotte won the newly instated WWE Women’s Championship, and Shane McMahon fought for the first time since 2009, but he lost to The Undertaker. As expected, these wrestlers alone made the internet buzz about WWE for weeks, but more importantly, the event set the all-time attendance record of 101,763 people!
What was your experience of these five most buzzed about WWE events of 2016?
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
