WWE History: What if WrestleMania 32 wasn't ruined by injuries?
WrestleMania 32 remains one of WWE's biggest missed opportunities in recent history.
The AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas hosted the Show of Shows in 2016. Over 100,000 fans were expected to attend the event, making this the biggest WrestleMania in history. This ideally should have led to WWE building the biggest card possible, but fate had other plans.
During the latter months of 2015, multiple main event WWE Superstars got injured. Big names like Seth Rollins, John Cena, and Randy Orton, among others, were set to miss WrestleMania 32. In fact, every WWE Superstar that left WrestleMania 31 as a champion was injured before the following year's event.
WWE's luck was rotten during this period, decimating some fascinating plans for the biggest WrestleMania in history.
As a result, the show was a mess. Aside from a few bright spots, particularly the WWE Women's Championship triple threat, WrestleMania 32 was a pretty mediocre show. The 30-minute main event between Triple H and then-unpopular Roman Reigns typified that.
But how different would the card have looked had these top stars not gone down with injuries? Would we have seen a vast improvement in the show?
Let's go a few years back and take a look at what WrestleMania 32 would have looked like if it wasn't ruined by injuries.
#5 AJ Styles likely debuts in WWE the night after WrestleMania 32
AJ Styles made his WWE debut in the 2016 Royal Rumble Match. He immediately entered into a program with Chris Jericho and faced him at WrestleMania. However, with all of the injured superstars being a part of the show, there may not have been a place for The Phenomenal One on the card.
Jericho was initially supposed to face Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania 32. This likely was changed due to a gaping hole in the main event scene following injuries to Seth Rollins and Randy Orton. Ambrose ended up facing Brock Lesnar in a Street Fight at the Show of Shows.
Under normal circumstances, the original plan would have gone ahead. Meanwhile, Styles still joins WWE, but he'd have been lost in the shuffle on the Road to WrestleMania. So the company might have probably booked his debut for the night after Mania, had the roster been at full strength for the Show of Shows.
The post-WrestleMania episode of RAW always features debuts, returns, and surprises. It would have been as good a setting as any for AJ Styles to make his WWE debut. This way, he could have established himself without any part-timers taking the spotlight.