While the wrestling world saw far more good pay-per-view-level events this year, there were some shows that didn't hit the mark, too, to be kind. With the end of the year rapidly approaching, and as a matter of fairness and balance, the time is right to dig into some of the worst pay-per-view events of 2016.
With that in mind, we polled the WWE on ESPN staff for their picks -- and the results speak for themselves.
Sometimes a big show doesn't come together, and when it comes to our first pick, there's a lot that went wrong with one of the biggest shows of the year.
SummerSlam
This one was an eye-roller. Let's look at how it ended: Finn Bálor made his WWE pay-per-view debut and beat Seth Rollins for the newly created Universal championship. Even if Bálor had not injured himself (and subsequently relinquished the title), the decision to catapult him to the summit of the WWE without setbacks along the way felt like a Roman Reigns-esque kind of move. Nonetheless, that was hardly the nadir of what should have been an epic card. Brock Lesnar elbowed his way to a disqualification when he struck Randy Orton and split the Viper's head open. Whether it was scripted is still in question, but the end result was mass confusion. Finally, wouldn't we all like to forget the debacle between Reigns and Rusev, which never really officially began because of a disorderly prematch ambush that left the Bulgarian unable to compete. While John Cena-AJ Styles was a shining star on a dark night, this show was terribly executed and failed to live up to the standard of being the second-biggest PPV of the year. -- Matt Wilansky
I wanted very badly to enjoy SummerSlam, and there was a lot to like about the show on its surface, but too many things fell the wrong way for me to ignore just how poorly this whole show went down. The match ordering of this show was choppy and uneven, and putting Lesnar-Orton on after both world title matches speaks to how much of disconnect there was between the WWE and its fans at that moment in time. But the fans in attendance were also to blame with how poorly I rate this show as a whole; their nonstop booing of the design of the Universal championship title belt distracted from what should have been a truly fantastic showdown. Between Bálor's injury, Orton's injury, a non-sensical DQ finish to the tag title match involving Jon Stewart (which really hurt Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson in the long term), a huge letdown after a great build to Dean Ambrose-Dolph Ziggler for the WWE world championship and the least effective match in the Sasha Banks-Charlotte Flair rivalry, the end result is me ranking this show the worst one WWE put on in 2016. -- Tim Fiorvanti
Roadblock: End of the Line
I feared for WWE's split brand pay-per-views following July's draft, given some of the efforts pot forth during the first stretch when Raw and SmackDown had separate rosters, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the consistency of PPVs over the second half of 2016, given just how many of them there have been. Surprisingly, I was set to nominate the joint-brand PPV SummerSlam as the worst of the year, given I felt it did not deliver on expectations, but December's Raw-brand Roadblock: End of the Line show ensured the year closed out with a whimper. The quiet Pittsburgh crowd didn't help, but Banks and Flair's "Iron Man" match was a bit of a letdown that failed to catch fire until around the 20-minute mark and had an ending that strained disbelief. The other two big matches, Rollins-Chris Jericho and Reigns-Kevin Owens for the Universal title, felt like Raw TV matches -- probably because we've seen every variation of these four men fighting on TV over the past couple of months. The finish to the main event, which saw Jericho getting Reigns disqualified by attacking Owens, then revealing they were in cahoots all along -- felt particularly like an angle more suited to Monday nights. -- Nic Atkin
Fastlane
Despite a couple of good matches on the card, the overall show was a letdown. Booking a random team-up of Ryback, Big Show and Kane to go over The Wyatt Family was a head-scratcher, and both women's matches were underwhelming and completely the opposite of where that division stands today. This was supposed to be a show that amped up the audience heading into WrestleMania 32, but it did not do that. There were too many holes -- I'm looking at you, random Curtis Axel vs. R-Truth match -- and odd booking decisions that left many unexcited about the monthlong buildup of the Reigns/Triple H saga that would follow. -- Sean Coyle
After Triple H won the 2016 Royal Rumble, we knew the buildup to Reigns' triumphant return to the top of the WWE mountain was imminent. But as the WWE Universe has done before, it reacted negatively to Reigns, hoping its voice would be heard and Ambrose would get the shot. The main event for Fastlane featured those two and Lesnar, who had become an adversary to Ambrose. The story stayed on script with Reigns in what was an entertaining match that served to promote "The Guy" to his WrestleMania main event but also served to ignite Ambrose and Lesnar's rivalry. The rest of the PPV before that match was largely flat due to an odd six-man tag and underwhelming women's matches. A Styles-Jericho match that further proved that "The Phenomenal One" belonged in the WWE and the same ring as a veteran like Jericho also happened on this night, but that was the only other bright spot in an otherwise forgettable buildup to "The Show of Shows" that is Wrestlemania -- Andrew Davis
TNA Bound for Glory
Bound for Glory is TNA's biggest PPV of the year, but you wouldn't know it based on the 2016 edition. In the weeks leading up to the show, there was so much speculation that the show wouldn't even happen that it overshadowed all of the storylines. TNA denied the rumors, and the show took place as scheduled, but it was a disjointed mess from both a public relations and execution perspective. The one highlight of the night was the Hardy vs. Decay tag team title match, labeled "Delete or Decay," but it was not enough to keep TNA from putting on the worst PPV of the year in all of wrestling. -- "Stat Guy" Greg Hyde