WWE: 10 biggest stories of 2016

9. James Ellsworth

Like it or not, James Ellsworth somehow managed to become one of the biggest stories in WWE in 2016. Following the brand split, a number of enhancement talents were brought in to be fed to Braun Strowman, whom WWE continues to build as this unstoppable monster. Okay, no problem. Strowman does have some work to do to get to where they want him to be and squash matches once again became a thing, taking us old-school fans back to the days of Barry Horowitz and Iron Mike Sharpe. The former Rosebud (no seriously, look it up) was destroyed by Strowman back in July but resurfaced in September on Smackdown Live as a tag team partner for AJ Styles. He was attacked by The Miz on his way to the ring and I think everyone thought that was the end of it. Nope.

A few weeks later, Ellsworth was chosen by WWE World Champion AJ Styles as his opponent in a non-title match and things took off from there. He was inserted as a major part of the feud between Styles and Dean Ambrose, and actually holds more victories over Styles than John Cena does. Seriously, think about that for a minute. And the WWE Universe took to all of this. He got his own entrance music and t-shirt, and was actually signed to a WWE contract (that’s not just kayfabe). That t-shirt ended up outselling those of most current WWE superstars on WWEshop.com. Again, I’m dead serious about that.

This isn’t even done yet. He still has a title shot coming on Smackdown Live Tuesday night and has gotten involved in some huge pay-per-view matches, including Survivor Series and WWE TLC, even costing Ambrose the title in a great match. He then cost Ambrose the Intercontinental Championship just last week and it looks as if this is going to go on for a while. I don’t know what they do with him after all of this but congrats, James Ellsworth. You just made the top 10 list of 2016.