Nowadays, the fact that wrestling is fixed is a poorly kept secret, and the overwhelming majority of fans understand that what they’re watching has been scripted and pre-planned. Sometimes those plans aren’t all that well thought out. WCW during the Monday Night War era, for example, was notorious for coming up with ideas the day of a show, or even mid-broadcast. These dynamics did keep fans guessing, given it was impossible for accurate information to leak out to them, but it also resulted in a lot of confusion among wrestlers, broadcasters, referees, management, and often as not the fans themselves.
WWE has typically had a better reputation for planning in advance, sometimes going so far as to plot out major story arcs a year or more in advance, like planting the seeds for Hulk Hogan to challenge Randy Savage at WrestleMania V at the end of WrestleMania IV, or having The Rock and John Cena openly set up the main event of WrestleMania XXVIII the night after WrestleMania XXVII.
Things don’t always go according to plan, however. Be it a matter of injuries, poor timing, a storyline leaking, or the creative whims of Vince McMahon and the other powers that be there are those times when the company charts a course with one performer in mind, only to have to change directions and put someone else into a similar spot. Sometimes, these shifts prove to be historically right calls, because it’s impossible to imagine anyone but the person cast in the role doing so well with it. Other times, when the secret of original plans come out, it's jaw dropping for the awesome potential for what might have been, and yet never actually came to pass.
This article looks at WWE gimmicks and storylines that were originally intended for someone else.
15 Samoa Joe Was Supposed To Be John Cena’s WrestleMania Season Rival
Some strange things happened in John Cena’s booking in early 2018. Heading into the Royal Rumble, and all the more so, he entered a mini-feud with Elias, which included the young heel getting the best of him in a brawl on Raw. Later, his WrestleMania storyline was built around not having any obvious matchup, culminating in a program in which he called out The Undertaker.
The Undertaker may have been the destination for Cena all along, but the path there, at minimum, seems to have been shuffled.
Word is that Cena had handpicked Samoa Joe as his rival for that period. Joe would make sense as not only a suitable upper mid card threat, but also someone Cena had worked with early in his pre-WWE career. When Joe was out for injury through the entirety of Rumble and ‘Mania season, though, Elias became his substitute for the in-between time, and some sources claim that The Deadman wasn’t originally planning to be back for WrestleMania 34.
14 Kevin Nash Was Supposed To Be The Anonymous Raw GM
One of the great mysteries of early 2010s WWE programming was the identity of the Anonymous Raw General Manager.
Over time, the Anonymous GM became more muddled, sometimes favoring heels, sometimes favoring faces, and more generally feeling like less of a character than a more random way of having an authority figure without actually casting one. Consistent with that, the character’s run stretched on, before quietly disappearing, never to be revealed. Finally, years later, Hornswoggle was implicated as the one who’d been emailing in proclamations all around, more as a one-off joke than a storyline of any consequence.
According to former WWE writer Kevin Eck, there was a plan for the GM to be Kevin Nash, and working from “behind the curtain” would, for hardcore fans, be an homage to his old Oz character from WCW. Nash ultimately did not jump from TNA to WWE in time for the storyline to work, though, leading to it being dropped, only to ultimately be resolved as an afterthought.
13 Christian Was Planned As Jeff Hardy’s Attacker
As 2008 rolled over into 2009, Jeff Hardy ascended to the main event. He pinned Triple H to win his first world championship, only to suddenly hit a string of bad luck in both his real life and storylines. WWE worked these instances of bad luck into a kayfabe pattern, with the implication that someone was conspiring against Hardy and sabotaging his life.
Christian was on his way back to WWE after a tour of TNA, and a variety of reports suggest Captain Charisma was going to be the guy, playing off of the long history between the Hardys and Edge and Christian.
Apparently, the secret became poorly enough kept, or enough fans were able to connect the dots that WWE felt Christian’s reveal would no longer be a surprise. So, a creative shift went down, and Matt Hardy was cast as the attacker.
While the storyline made reasonable sense, the Hardy brothers didn’t demonstrate a ton of chemistry as opponents, and fans were generally more excited to see them cooperate than fight one another. Meanwhile, Christian was largely directionless for his first year back. Add up all of the factors, and it certainly seems as though WWE would have been better of sticking with the original plan.
12 Kassius Ohno Was To Be The Shield’s Big Man
In his visit to Colt Cabana’s podcast, the better part of year after he walked from WWE, CM Punk discussed early plans for The Shield. One scenario involved the group not only helping out Punk, but actually debuting as a stable under his leadership. As such, Punk had some creative input as to the group makeup, and says that he went to bat for Kassius Ohno, who he knew from the independents, to be the big man alongside Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.
WWE tapped Roman Reigns for the spot instead, having big plans for him, and recognizing this as an opportunity to help get him over and give him a platform to develop his skills while remaining protected as he only had to work limited minutes during six-man tag matches. While it seems Punk disagreed with the call, he didn’t really fight it.
While Reigns has his detractors, there’s little doubt he wound up accomplishing more coming out of The Shield than Ohno would have. Unfortunately for Ohno, he’s been stuck in NXT without much progress or momentum, despite his proven talent. It remains a real question whether he’ll ever make it out of developmental.
11 Nick Bockwinkel Was Originally Cast As Mr. Perfect
It seems certain that in the late 1980s, WWE management came up with the Mr. Perfect gimmick, and were dead set on casting a top heel in the role. It’s often been reported that Curt Hennig and Terry Taylor were the two man candidates for the role. Each would have made reasonable sense given either man’s skill and athleticism, paired with talking skills and good looks. Fans have long speculated about what might have been for Taylor if he had a gimmick of that caliber, rather than being saddled with the Red Rooster character.
Hennig, obviously, thrived in what would become his most famous character.
In a stop by Edge and Christian’s podcast, Tommy Dreamer made mention that it was actually Nick Bockwinkel, rather than Hennig or Taylor, whom the Mr. Perfect gimmick was originally set up for. Bockwinkel’s technical proficiency and vast vocabulary could have made him a compelling fit, too. In the end, Bockwinkel wound up not coming to terms on a contract, and wouldn’t work for WWE at all in that era.
10 Fandango Replaced Ryback As Chris Jericho’s WrestleMania XXIX Opponent
One of the most anomalous matchups in recent WrestleMania history was Chris Jericho facing off with Fandango. Jericho was a well established, top tier star. Fandango was having his debut. The character of a ballroom dancer felt like it had a mid card ceiling firmly in place, and so it was especially odd to book the rookie against Y2J, let alone to have him go over at WrestleMania.
Jericho discussed in a recent episode of his podcast that plans change and top guys need to be adaptable. He used his case as an example. According to Jericho, he returned for that WWE run specifically to work with Ryback who had gotten over as a top shelf face that preceding year. WWE ended up changing directions, though, to cast Ryback in a powerhouse feud with Mark Henry. According to Jericho, the Fandango program came up as a backup plan, and was pitched to him as using his credibility to help get a new star over with the fans.
9 CM Punk Was Going To Challenge The Authority
Daniel Bryan’s performances at WrestleMania XXX have become the stuff of legend, and he was featured in (and won) the two best matches of the night. Bryan would open the show facing off with Triple H, with the stipulation that if he won, he’d earn a spot in the main event world title match at the end of the night.
Accounts vary as to when WWE brass gave Bryan the nod for the main event—if that were the plan all along, or at what point crowd responses swayed the booking. One point everyone seems to agree on, though, is that Bryan was not originally supposed to wrestle Triple H at that show.
CM Punk explained things pretty clearly in a visit to Colt Cabana’s podcast, and no one has publicly challenged his account.
The Straight Edge Superstar said he was booked to face The Game at ‘Mania, and wasn’t interested, particularly because the last item on his WWE bucket list was to work the last match at a WreslteMania, and that bout wasn’t going to go last. Punk’s response purportedly enflamed existing tensions, as working Triple H at the biggest show of the year was meant to be an honor.
8 Chris Jericho Was Offered The Role Of The Goon
Today, Chris Jericho is on the short list of biggest wrestling stars in the world. He’s a veteran who has won multiple world titles in WWE, and he’s main evented WrestleMania. He had the star wattage to insert himself into New Japan Wrestling this past year and create one of the biggest news stories of the year (not to mention putting on a great match opposite Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12).
Jericho wasn’t born into wrestling royalty, though. He spent years honing his craft on the indies before he got a shot with WCW, which he in turn parlayed into a WWE opportunity.
Y2J did have one earlier shot at signing with WWE, though, which he has discussed in his books and on his podcast.
He was offered a role during a new push to have jobbers who had more clearly defined gimmicks, and worked full time with the company.
Among the spots he was purportedly earmarked for was the hockey playing Goon. Jericho has explained he opted not to take the spot because he didn’t want to be locked into an enhancement talent spot. That would seem to be the right call. His patience paid off with eventual mega-stardom. Veteran journeyman Bill Irwin wound up working the gimmick instead.
7 Chris Benoit Was Supposed To Reign As ECW Champion
June 2007 saw one of the most profound tragedies to ever rock the wrestling world. As a particularly strange footnote to the gruesome tale, Benoit was supposed to win the ECW Championship the same weekend it went down.
Benoit uncharacteristically called in to miss work as the first sign something was really wrong. Without any real backup plan, WWE wound up moving lower mid card talent John Morrison from Raw to ECW to work Benoit’s scheduled match against CM Punk for the ECW title that Bobby Lashley had vacated. Morrison won, setting him and ECW off in a very different direction than had been originally planned. Details about what Benoit had done would roll out to the public in the days to follow.
6 Jeff Hardy Was Supposed To Get CM Punk’s Original Money In The Bank Run
At WrestleMania XXIV, CM Punk won the Money in the Bank Ladder Match, and was thus given his first trial run as a world champion. The push came out of nowhere as Punk was pretty firmly entrenched in the mid card leading up to it. It’s almost as though that push weren’t really meant for him.
A variety of sources report that Jeff Hardy was the intended recipient of that exact push.
A Wellness Policy suspension saw him get removed from the the ladder match. Punk was in many ways a suitable replacement for Hardy—a similarly sized mid card face with a similar groundswell of support from the fans. Punk’s first Money in the Bank run and first title reign wouldn’t amount to much, which reinforced the idea WWE hadn’t really planned it for him. Hardy would wind up rising to the top later that year anyway, going a more conventional route to winning his first WWE Championship at December’s Armageddon PPV.
5 Mark Jindrak Was Earmarked For Evolution
Mark Jindrak came over from WCW as one of a small handful of genuinely promising prospects. He had the look and size of a WWE star, and still young enough to have plenty of time to adapt his style to WWE’s preferences. So, he was lined up for a push, shortlisted for Triple H and Ric Flair’s new Evolution stable. The group was designed to cast Flair as a player coach who’d divide his time between managing and wrestling as an elder statesmen, while Triple H main evented, and two up and comers sat under their learning tree while they were groomed for top roles with the company.
Jindrak would be one of the chosen young studs, alongside Randy Orton.
No one has given a conclusive read on why WWE changed its mind about Jindrak, and we can only assume the company, or at least Triple H, saw more upside in Batista, or thought having more of a monster heel presence would help diversify the group. The Animal went on to be a multi-time world champ and WrestleMania main eventer. Jindrak would hang around WWE a few years but never accomplish much, before going on to a more successful career in Mexico.
4 Steve Austin Was Going To Have Ric Flair’s House Show Feud With Eddie Guerrero
In 2002, Steve Austin infamously took his ball and went home, walking from WWE after he felt underutilized. The final straw was getting booked to lose to Brock Lesnar in a throwaway TV match with no build. The general consensus now is that Austin was in the right creatively speaking, but also made an unprofessional call in leaving the company in the lurch.
Austin’s immediate plans in WWE at that point would have seen him working Eddie Guerrero in a series of house show matches, perhaps testing the waters about moving Guerrero up the card (Latino Heat would, indeed win the WWE Championship within a couple of years). Ric Flair had only been wrestling sporadically at that point, and stepped up his schedule closer to full time to substitute for Stone Cold.
3 Christopher Daniels Was Going To Play The Greater Power
While the plan was far from set in stone, WWE creative contributor Bruce Prichard, at the least, envisioned Christopher Daniels playing The Greater Power during The Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness angle.
Contrary to more thoroughly planned periods in WWE programming, the Attitude Era had a relatively high volume of cases like this, in which epic stories were set up before there had been any decision about how they’d be resolved.
Prichard advocated for top indie star Daniels to play The Deadman’s guiding light, and thus debut as a major player.
Upon watching tape of Daniels himself, Vince McMahon reportedly thought he was too short and slight to be cast in such a high profile role. In the end, Daniels wasn’t signed at all, and McMahon himself would play the Greater Power. The merging of the Ministry with McMahon’s Corporation stable was a fun enough angle, though the suggestion McMahon and The Undertaker had been cooperating behind the scenes all along created quite a few plot holes.
2 Mr. Kennedy Was Supposed To Be Mr. McMahon’s Attacker… And Son
Make no mistake about it—WWE saw very big things in Mr. Kennedy. It’s no coincidence the character was assigned the Kennedy surname, Vince McMahon’s middle name, as a subtle nod of credibility. After starring in developmental, he debuted in the upper mid card, and went on to have the starts of several big pushes including winning a Money in the Bank briefcase.
Two of the biggest setups for Kennedy were the "Who Killed Mr. McMahon" angle, and the Mr. McMahon’s Illegitimate Son story. Each plot promised to reveal a mystery man who would get an enormous push. The first story however, was retconned when the real life Benoit family tragedy went down and made WWE feel like such an angle was in poor taste. For the latter, poorly timed injuries followed by complaints of attitude problems kept stacking up for Kennedy until WWE gave up on him, and wound up throwing Hornswoggle into the spot as McMahon’s illegitimate brethren.
1 Randy Orton Was Intended To Main Event WrestleMania 21
WrestleMania 21 was a huge jumping off point for the future of WWE, as it featured John Cena and Batista each winning their first world championships, and Edge setting up his own main event future when he won the first Money in the Bank briefcase. On a slightly lesser scale, Randy Orton upped his own stock when he gave The Undertaker a run for his money, threatening to end the Deadman’s WrestleMania undefeated streak just as it was becoming a big deal.
Orton didn’t have a bad night for himself, but it was clear WWE intended on bigger things for the Legend Killer.
In the preceding months, he became the youngest world champion in WWE history, left Evolution, and was generally booked as the top face in the company. However, WWE faced the inescapable truth that Orton, particularly at that time, was vanilla when playing a hero, and had a hard time connecting with the crowd. The Undertaker program, and turning heel during it, proved key to Orton regaining momentum. Meanwhile, Batista beating Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship in that WrestleMania main event went a long way toward making his career.