It’s been a busy year in the WWE so far with plenty of retirements, returns, scandals, and the discontinuation of one its legendary announcers.
But it’s these types of surprises–both within and outside the storyline–that have made betting on WWE increasingly popular at online sportsbooks. Betting on a predetermined event might sound crazy at first, but as any good wrestling fan knows, the outcome can (and has) changed moments before a big match. And scripted or not, what does actually happen in the kayfabe is always compelling television and totally unpredictable.
In a year full of them, below are five of our biggest shocks this year in professional wrestling (so far).
5) Return of Shane-O-Mac
After leaving the WWE in 2009, Shane McMahon took his career success from the ring to the corner suite, working in executive roles for a number of international sports and entertainment organizations. If he ever did return to wrestling, most just assumed it would be a one-off cameo here or there.
So in February when the presentation of the “Vince McMahon Lifetime Achievement Award” to sister Stephanie on Raw was interrupted by the blare of Shane-O-Mac’s “Here Comes the Money” theme, it was understandably one of wrestling’s biggest surprise returns in recent memory.
4) Dropping the Divas
With the popularity of the women’s championship in UFC and of the Four Horsewoman in NXT, it was only a matter of time before the WWE re-worked their Divas Championship into something that didn’t seem like such a side-show and that was more representative of ‘real’ pro wrestling.
Thus, at WrestleMania 32 it was announced that the Diva Championship (and its ugly butterfly belt) were going to be officially retired in place of the new WWE Women’s Championship belt. At that pay-per-view, defending-Divas champ Charlotte defeated Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch making her both the last Divas Champ and first WWE Women’s Champ.
3) Roman Reigns Suspended
Due to the increasing prevalence of its former stars suffering from major health issues, in 2006 the WWE implemented a Wellness Program intended to better protect its athletes’ health through regular physicals. That program also includes drug testing, and in June it was announced that Roman Reigns was the latest performer to test positive for prohibited substances.
Roman owned the mistake on Twitter and was suspended for 30 days for the offense (his first violation of the wellness program). Rumor was that the WWE knew of the then-WWE World Heavyweight Champion’s positive test before the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, and that it played into the company’s decision to make him lose the title just 77 days after winning it.
2) Extension II and SmackDown going live
It had been five years since the WWE had ended their ‘brand extension’ which had separated their talent and storylines across two TV shows (Raw and SmackDown). But with the WWE Network now well-established (reportedly one of the reasons for the end of the original split), rumors had been swirling for some time that a similar brand re-extension was going to occur.
Those rumors turned out to be true, and it was also announced that the show would be moving to Tuesday nights and be broadcast live as SmackDown Live. On July 19 the WWE’s talent was divided again via draft, with Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, and John Cena being SmackDown’s first three picks.
1) Daniel Bryan retiring
As Max Landis put it in Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling, “Daniel Bryan is not the best actor, but sometimes in wrestling that doesn’t matter. When you have enough heart…you can reach the top of this industry.” And that’s exactly what the fan-favorite Brian did, making his retirement in February 2016 such a hard one for fans to hear.
After long battles with injuries, seizures, and at least 10 concussions, the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion announced his retirement on Twitter (and then later that same day on Raw). Thankfully, the Yes! Man isn’t completely gone from our wrestling lives, and since retiring has assumed some commentating roles as well as becoming the on-screen General Manager of SmackDown Live!
