| Battleground | |||
|---|---|---|---|
&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:Official_poster_for_Battleground_2016.jpg) Promotional poster featuring John Cena | |||
| Promotion | WWE | ||
| Brand(s) | Raw SmackDown | ||
| Date | July 24, 2016 | ||
| City | Washington, D.C. | ||
| Venue | Verizon Center | ||
| Attendance | 15,109 | ||
| WWE Network event chronology | |||
| |||
| Battleground chronology | |||
| |||
The 2016 Battleground (also known as Battlefield in Germany) was the fourth annual Battleground professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on July 24, 2016, at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. It was the last event to feature WWE's full main roster before the newly reinstated brand extension went into full effect, excluding WWE's "Big Four" PPVs (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series), as after the following month's SummerSlam, monthly PPVs became brand-exclusive until WrestleMania 34 in April 2018, after which, brand-exclusive PPVs were again discontinued.
Nine matches were contested at the event, including one match on the Kickoff pre-show. In addition to the regular matches, the event determined the home brand of the WWE Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the United States Championship. The WWE Women's Championship and WWE Tag Team Championship were not defended at the event and automatically became exclusive to Raw by default due to their respective champions being drafted to the brand in the 2016 WWE Draft that was held just prior to this event. These two championships were subsequently renamed after other championships were later established so that each brand had a men's world championship, a women's world championship, a secondary male championship, and a male tag team championship.
In the main event, SmackDown's Dean Ambrose retained the WWE Championship in a triple threat match against his former Shield teammates, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, both of whom had been drafted to Raw, thus keeping the championship on SmackDown. Also, SmackDown's The Miz defeated Raw's Darren Young to keep the Intercontinental Championship on SmackDown, and Raw's Rusev defeated SmackDown's Zack Ryder to keep the United States Championship on Raw. The show was also notable for Randy Orton's first appearance after a nine-month injury, as well as Bayley's main roster debut.