The WWE storylines are what keep the product refreshing and exciting, as the intricate story of the various feuds and angles is what separates WWE from any other wrestling promotion in the world. The innovative storylines were at a peak during the Attitude Era, when just about any crazy story pitch was accepted by Vince McMahon, who did all sorts of mad things in an attempt to win the ratings battle against WCW.

But after his competition was literally bought out by him, Vince got more and more protective about the kind of stories he'd want to be displayed on TV, especially after the PG Era was set in motion. There have been many cases of creative writers quitting the WWE due to Vince not accepting their story pitches and many creative writers and wrestlers alike have spoken about their interesting storyline ideas being rejected by the boss. While some of these storylines might seem really stupid, others are actually very interesting and just thinking about them can get fans hooked, knowing how amazing the story could've been if implemented perfectly.

These recently rejected WWE storyline ideas are definitely some of the most promising ones and would've resulted in a different route for many characters in the company.

16 15. Ryback Going To MMA And Returning To Face Brock Lesnar At WrestleMania

Ryback has been quite the loud-mouth ever since leaving the WWE, with "The Big Guy" being pretty bitter about the company releasing him as he had aspirations of becoming a top star in the WWE. While Ryback has been blabbering about all sorts of things, he also spoke about a potential storyline he pitched to Vince McMahon. Ryback stated that he pitched a storyline with Brock Lesnar, where the two would face off at WrestleMania. He would go away for six months to practice MMA in his residing town of Las Vegas and return to challenge Brock Lesnar at the grandest stage of them all. Apparently, Vince got really pissed at this and lashed out at him. You can't really blame him for rejecting this storyline which makes no sense and only proves why WWE was right to let Ryback go.

15 14. A Faction Of Former Indy Stars Invade WWE

There has been quite the inflow of stables in the WWE over the past decade or so, but only a few of them have been really successful before going stale. But according to former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck, he had a really interesting idea for a stable in the WWE. He came up with a storyline where the three WWE developmental wrestlers at the time in Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Kassius Ohno would be promoted to the main roster by WWE's new "scouting head" Tommy Dreamer. But the three would later turn on Dreamer, stating that they wouldn't wait to climb to the top and wreck havoc on the roster. This was rejected but it turns out something similar ended up happening through the Shield later, but sadly Eck wasn't really given any credits for that even though the idea's inception came through him.

14 13. Justin Gabriel's Darewolf Gimmick

Justin Gabriel was a really exciting wrestler in the WWE when he debuted as part of the Nexus all those years ago, but his character got really stale once he went solo and slowly made for the end of his WWE career as well. Gabriel's gimmick was bad and he definitely wanted to change that, as he even requested his own gimmick and storyline to build him into a character which would be a combination of a werewolf and a daredevil. Apparently, Vince McMahon liked the idea and they even had him do vignettes of him doing gymnastics, juggling fire etc to pump up his character. Vince was also ready to trademark the name but Triple H shot it down, thinking it wouldn't click. The gimmick could've saved or ruined Gabriel's reputation, but it would've been interesting to see this outlandish storyline of him portraying a Darewolf.

13 12. Cody Rhodes and Brandi As The New Goldust & Marlena

Cody Rhodes' WWE career started to really go downhill once he was given the gimmick of Stardust, which WWE aimed to make their new Goldust. But Stardust was something nobody could take seriously and could've been more interesting had Kevin Eck's idea been implemented. The former WWE writer spoke about a pitch he made when Goldust and Cody Rhodes started to team up. He stated that Rhodes would turn on Goldust after getting jealous of him hogging the spotlight and become Stardust. It would be revealed that his wife Brandi was influencing him and the two would become the new Goldust and Marlena(a popular pair in the 90s) and Stardust win the feud against his brother to go over. But Vince McMahon rejected this and went on with the very disappointing feud between the two which only had one underwhelming match and this awful gimmick also made Cody quit WWE.

12 11. American Alpha To Be Separated

American Alpha has been one of the most exciting tag teams to have come up the ranks in the WWE over the past few years, as Chad Gable and Jason Jordan have been extremely entertaining with their amazing work in NXT and Smackdown Live! The Smackdown Live Tag Team Champions might've won the title soon after making the main roster jump, but at one point it wasn't looking like they would get promoted together at all. According to various sources, only Jason Jordan was to be called up to the main roster as a singles star while Chad Gable would be left behind, which would separate American Alpha. Apparently, WWE saw Jordan as a major star and wanted him to be pushed as a singles star, but the overwhelming popularity of the two thankfully got both of them promoted and keeps American Alpha together for a long time.

11 10. The Female Shield

The Shield was definitely one of the greatest creations from WWE in their history, as this bad-ass trio of Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins ruled over the WWE as a stable and are now top stars after disbanding the stable. After the Shield ended up being so popular, WWE decided to give it another try and wanted to create a female Shield. They decided to pair up Paige, Summer Rae, and Anya as the female version of the Hounds of Justice and even prepared vignettes for it. There's even a video of their promo as the female Shield and WWE was quite intent on making it a thing but pulled it off at the last minute. One can only imagine how intriguing it could've been if there was a female shield and how it would've made an impact on WWE"s Women's Division hadn't WWE gotten the jitters at the last second.

10 9. Vince McMahon To Play Adam Roses' Bunny

Adam Rose was quite the fun character when he initially debuted in the WWE, as this "party" character was pretty funny with everything he did and also because of his mini-feud with the Bunny. Now before The Bunny would eat up a lot of Roses' time on TV, there was quite a debate among WWE's management on exactly who would play it. In a recent interview, Rose spoke about how there was quite a debate on who would play the Bunny and how he wanted Justin Gabriel to do it. Rose explained how management even pitched the idea of Vince McMahon playing the Bunny. It would've been absolutely crazy if this had actually gone through and even thinking Vince as the Bunny is absolutely insane, but that was nixed and it was indeed Gabriel who played the infamous Bunny.

9 8. Becky Lynch As A Lesbian Character

Becky Lynch has been a great, hard-working wrestler in the WWE for the past few years and she might not have won much in NXT, but her immense work-rate made her famous in the main roster. The first ever Smackdown Women's Champion is one of the top women on the blue brand right now, but that could've all come crashing down had WWE actually given her a homosexual gimmick. So about a year ago when Stephanie McMahon confirmed that WWE was going to have more LGBT characters in its programming, there were rumors floating of Lynch being given a gimmick of a Lesbian. Apparently, WWE were set to give Lynch this bizarre gimmick which wouldn't have made much sense, but her rise in popularity made them nix the plans and thankfully Becky remained the "straight-fire" lass-kicker she is right now.

8 7. Neville Debuting As "The Mighty Mouse"

Neville has really grown as a character ever since joining the main roster, as the "King of the Cruiserweights" is doing a damn good job with the character and perfectly playing his heel role. But before he was pitched to get the main roster call, the former NXT Champion's main roster gimmick was a thing of much discussion. Many sources had stated that there was also discussion of Neville getting the gimmick of "Mighty Mouse", which was a cartoon character superhero. He was to get a "Crash Holly" type of gimmick where he wouldn't actually wear the costume but was inspired from the cartoon superhero and this would've absolutely destroyed his reputation. Thankfully it was rejected and he was given the "Man That Gravity Forgot" gimmick which asserted him as an exciting individual on the main roster and later resulted in this amazing gimmick as the Cruiserweight Champion.

7 6. Batista's Final Feud With Triple H

"The Animal" Batista has over the years developed himself into a big star in Hollywood, as he has attained quite a lot of popularity by starring in hit films like Guardians of the Galaxy which has cemented him a place in Hollywood. He did return to WWE a few years ago when he won the Royal Rumble and was part of an Evolution reunion, but Batista is adamant on not returning to WWE if it's not on his terms. The former World Heavyweight Champion spoke on Chris Jericho's podcast "Talk is Jericho" and explained how he pitched a story idea to Vince McMahon. It would see Batista return to the WWE and have a retirement program with Triple H which would result in a lengthy feud and a final match at WrestleMania. But this was rejected by Vince as many fans' hopes of seeing another Batista vs Triple H match was also destroyed.

6 5. The Big Show Assaults Alberto Del Rio's Father

The rivalry between Alberto Del Rio and The Big Show a few years for the World Heavyweight Championship made no sense as Del Rio was an unconvincing face and The Big Show didn't do anything bad to get a lot of heat on him during the feud. But according to former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck, he had planned something really interesting to get people hooked to the feud. Eck had proposed a storyline where they would bring in Alberto Del Rio's father Dos Caras, who is a legend in the Mexican Wrestling scene. Dos Caras would be delivering a promo on an episode of Raw with his mask on and would be interrupted by Big Show, who would beat him up and tear off his mask(something which has never happened). But Vince McMahon didn't think it would make sense and rejected the idea, as this boring feud could've been saved had this been implemented.

5 4. The Raw Anonymous General Manager Revelation

The Raw Anonymous General Manager was a really annoying concept a few years ago and there was a lot of speculation on who exactly the GM was. Many thought it to be Stone Cold Steve Austin among others, but it turned out to be Hornswoggle for some bizarre reason to put an end to this awful storyline. But the original pitch for the revelation by former WWE writer Kevin Eck was actually pretty interesting. Eck had pitched a storyline where the Anonymous General Manager was revealed to be Kevin Nash, who couldn't reveal his identity due to him being contracted to TNA at the time. It would be revealed that Nash would be in WWE's production truck wearing a wizard's hat, a nod to his WCW Oz character. But WWE had agreed on Hornswoggle before he could properly implement anything and it all turned out to be a trainwreck which left fans wanting so much more.

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3 3. Justin Bieber Headlining SummerSlam 2014

SummerSlam 2014 was a delightful pay-per-view for many wrestling fans as it saw Brock Lesnar absolutely destroy John Cena and win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, but that almost didn't happen. According to former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck, the original plans for the main event of SummerSlam that year was for pop-star Justin Bieber to headline the hottest PPV of the summer. There were discussion 5 months before the event about how Bieber would team up with Cena and The Big Show to take on the Wyatt Family and go on to defeat them as well. It would end up with Bieber acting obnoxious and get an Attitude Adjustment for a big pop to end the show. Thankfully WWE couldn't agree on a deal with Bieber and this never happened as it would've been wrong on so many ends and wouldn't have seen Lesnar go over as the top dog of WWE.

2 2. Cody Rhodes And Kaitlyn Romantic Angle

The "Dashing Cody Rhodes" gimmick was really great when he pulled off an amazing mustache and had aligned with Damien Sandow, but things went sour after the two had an unconvincing feud and were separated. But according to former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck, he had plans for the feud to get really interesting with a romantic angle between Cody Rhodes and WWE Diva Kaitlyn. So Kaitlyn had voiced her love for mustached men on Twitter and Eck had proposed a storyline where she would fall for Cody Rhodes (who was a heel) and this would result in an angle where Damien Sandow got jealous of both of them, turning heel on Rhodes as they'd have some mixed tag matches after that before solidifying the relationship. But Vince nixed these plans and aligned The Bellas with Rhodes and Sandow because he didn't like the "muscular" Kaitlyn. Classic Vince!

1 1. Dean Ambrose And AJ Lee Pair Up From A Mental Institution

Dean Ambrose and AJ Lee are both pretty crazy characters in the past history of WWE, with both being known for the lunacy and one can't help but get interested in how their pair would've worked. An amazing idea was actually pitched by former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck, who had proposed a storyline for Lee after she got rejected by Daniel Bryan. Lee would be sent to a mental institution by Bryan and would be off TV for months before she returned with her "boyfriend" Dean Ambrose. They would both be absolutely crazy together and wrecked havoc as a pair with the two being WWE's version of Bonnie & Clyde. But this was also rejected by McMahon who instead made Lee the General Manager of Raw which didn't work at all and this promising, absolutely insane storyline was rejected.