What Could Have Been/Professional Wrestling

A lot of these are just fan guesses because Wrestling storylines are constantly changing and original storylines rarely are acknowledged by the creative staff, but what the hell:

• The Undertaker was supposed to be an actual undertaker instead of a zombie/biker.
  • Technically he was, when he was managed (briefly) by Brother Love -- then Paul Bearer became his manager, and with him came the mysterious urn that was the source of his supernatural powers.
  • The Undertaker was also supposed to debut as the infamous Gobbledygooker. However, this idea was seen as too ridiculous and The Undertaker persona was born right after the Gobbledygooker gimmick bombed.
• Chyna was briefly planned to win the WWE title at Summerslam 1999.
• Mr. Kennedy was supposed to be Vince's illegitimate son. Then he got himself a Wellness Policy violation.
  • Don't forget, this was a substitute angle for the "Who Killed Vince McMahon?" thing. What if THAT angle got to play out properly, instead of being pulled due to the Chris Benoit situation?
    • Apparently, the night Benoit died the "murderer" was supposed to be revealed as Linda McMahon, who would be arrested at that show. Some weeks later, there was supposed to be an "aired Will reading" by Mr. McMahon himself wherein he would leave the entire WWE in the hands of his "illegitimate son" Mr. Kennedy. This was meant to turn Kennedy into a massive heel and give him a mega-push to the championship. At that point, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H were going to reveal their kayfabe-second, consensual marriage - based on their real one - that would entitle Triple H to combat Mr. Kennedy for the right to own the WWE, culminating in a feud that would push all the way to the Main Event of that year's Wrestlemania. After THAT was finished, in which Triple H would win back control of the company from Kennedy, Vince was meant to come back and reveal that he'd faked the whole thing and setup Linda to take the fall so that way he could give everything to his "true son."
  • Kennedy's career is full of these non-moments. When The Undertaker suffered a Game-Breaking Injury in 2007, Mr. Kennedy was going to use his Money in the Bank contract and capture the World Heavyweight title. However, Kennedy himself would have an injury of his own, so Edge would end up winning the contract from Kennedy in a match (after Edge attacked Kennedy on the ramp, thus not making Kennedy look weak, but doing a short match). What makes this situation really awful is that Kennedy's injury was not as serious as initially thought, as it was a giant hematoma as opposed to a torn triceps, so Kennedy ended up losing a World title run for something that didn't keep him out two months.
    • The curse didn't stop here as far as the World Heavyweight title was concerned, as Edge would suffer his own injury about a month into what was supposed to be Kennedy's run with the world title. The Smackdown Creative team was so desperate for a Heel champion that they put the title on The Great Khali.
  • As for Chris Benoit himself, we would had become the new focal point of ECW by winning the title at Vengeance and feuding with CM Punk, building Punk up similar to his feud with MVP.
    • Also, had Benoit's death not been part of a murder-suicide, would the WWE have milked it for what it's worth, like they did when Eddie Guerrero died?
• Kane was supposed to remask in 2008. In December 2011, he finally did, turning this into a 'what became'.
• Christian was supposed to be the one behind Jeff Hardy's "accidents" in late 2008.
• The disastrous one-year WWE Championship reign of Diesel (Kevin Nash) was originally intended to end at a house show in Montreal... to Montreal native and (kayfabe) Cajun pirate, Jean-Pierre LaFaitte (formerly Carl Oulette of The Quebecers). Executive Meddling on behalf of The Kliq not only prevented this, but went out of their way to bury LaFitte on camera.
• In 1999, then-WWF booker Vince Russo abruptly jumped to WCW; this left WWF's creative staff scrambling to come up with resolutions to approaching angles, one of them being the impending wedding of Stephanie McMahon and Test. Russo later admitted that his plan was to have Test turn heel, join D Generation X, and leave Stephanie at the altar.
• In a rare case of actually acknowledging what could have been, WWE actually released promotional pictures of Owen Hart as WWF Champion from his aborted 1994 title run. Owen was originally supposed to beat older brother Bret for the title in a Lumberjack Match at a house show in July due to interference from Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, which would lead into their cage match at SummerSlam (a match which did happen, and was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for both men). For whatever reason, this was booked as a Dusty Finish so the WWF invented an instant replay rule that would keep the belt on him (hey, at least it was better than the "not an official ring" excuse he used to keep the Rockers from being the tag team champions).
  • Similarly: Stephanie McMahon has hinted in interviews that, on the day he died, Eddie Guerrero was booked to win the World Heavyweight Championship in a Triple Threat Match involving an injured then-champion Batista.
    • Batista later stated in his book that Randy Orton was the one who was going to win the title, and most likely Stephanie's comments were sadness over Eddie never becoming a champion again like he hoped to be.
    • Chavo's comments after his departure from WWE about him and Eddie used more for building newer talent rather than being given their own pushes give some validity to Batista.
• The biggest "What Could Have Been" in wrestling history: the InVasion. After the buyout of WCW, WWE was planning to have WCW run as an entirely separate wrestling promotion (but still be a part of the WWE corporate structure; in essence, the plan was an early prototype of the Brand Extension). Unfortunately, WWE couldn't find a time slot for WCW, so instead, the InVasion angle began. This was intended to move WCW into a primetime slot, with Raw planned to become WCW's show while SmackDown would be WWE's show. However, this plan also fell through, and in the end, the InVasion ended up being one giant bag of suck.
• Sting was supposed to be the 3rd man in the nWo. Then Hulk Hogan had a talk with Bischoff...
  • The nWo itself was supposed to end at Starcade 1997. Who knows what could have happened?
• Matt Hardy's feud with Drew McIntyre was supposed to have Matt use a Twitter campaign to rehire McIntire so he could face him.
• What if Daniel Bryan didn't get fired from the WWE and stayed in The Nexus?
• Although Mick Foley has had numerous crowning moments in his career, his first book Have a Nice Day notes that he did end up missing on one that would have been the highlight of his Dude Love persona. In Summerslam 1997 Mankind was wrestling Triple H in a cage match. Mankind was supposed to go through a personality change, rip off his shirt revealing a heart tattoo on his chest and do a dive off the top of the cage as per the fantasy of Dude Love. Unfortunately Mick forgot to get the tattoo done, and he was too bruised up to do a proper dive resulting in many a confused fan.
• Wrestlecrap's "Rewriting the Book" is an entire section of Fan Fiction devoted to What Could Have Been.
  • With the notable difference from Real Life that, in those stories, the booking is actually quite good.
• When WWE wrote off their annual Survivor Series PPV in 2010, THE top candidate for its replacement was a PPV based on WCW's War Games match.
• If the writers hadn't pissed off Austin with a last-minute Raw booking in the King of the Ring tournament against Brock Lesnar that would have helped neither of them, he would have continued feuding with Eddie Guerrero.
  • Or what if Wrestlemania X8 main event was Austin vs. Hogan?
• In early 2010, with Eric Bischoff as General Manager and Hulk Hogan as creative consultant, Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter planned to launch a whole new generation of the Monday Night Wars by moving TNA Impact to Monday nights and running it against WWE Raw's timeslot. This plan failed spectacularly and the TNA program moved back to Thursday nights, but it would have been really interesting to see which show had proved more popular (especially because they're so different in tone and style).
• WWE almost signed New Jack. Although his tryout match with Val Venis was really short and lackluster, his promo skills impressed Vince McMahon and he was well-liked in the locker room. Due to the inevitable Bowdlerization and Vince's concern that New Jack would seriously hurt someone, it didn't happen.
• Another almost-WWE signee would be Steve Corino. After leaving ECW for WCW, Corino was released after the WWF bought the latter. Six years later, he wrestled a couple tryout matches but was never offered a contract. He turned down a request from Dusty Rhodes since he felt he couldn't do the short five-minute matches that were standard in WWE compared to the 20+ minute bouts he had done in Japan and elsewhere.
• A third would be AJ Styles who turned down a developmental contract to stay and support his future wife's college education.
  • Other TNA names that had stints or worked dark matches in WWE include Alex Shelley, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels.
• Before becoming Brock Lesnar's manager, Paul Heyman was set to become Chris Benoit's.
• Mark "Marco Corleone" Jindrak was set to be the fourth member of Evolution.
• Lex Luger's All-American Face push was originally supposed to go to Kona Crush. When the time came to body slam Yokozuna in the Stars and Stripes Challenge, the big Hawaiian hurt his back trying to lift him, and the show's MC Randy Savage had to improvise while they flew Luger onto the ship to body slam him.
• Sting was approached to wrestle The Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXVII, but turned it down because he disliked Vince McMahon's treatement of former WCW talent.
  • There was what appears to be a rather interesting side-effect to Sting turning the offer down; Triple H's entrance included an abbreviated version of the Metallica song For Whom The Bell Tolls. Considering that Sting's entrance music in WCW used to be Seek & Destroy, it's thought that WWE had secured the rights to a play a Metallica track at the event in advance specifically for Sting, and decided to use a different track when he declined the offer.
  • There were apparently plans to have Wade Barrett vs. Undertaker at WM XXVII quite early on, which appears to be evidenced by the rather sudden beatdown by The Nexus upon The Undertaker in the middle of 2010.
• Dwayne Johnson, better known as "The Rock", considered running for President as a Republican in the 2008 election.
• What if Magnum T.A. (who was arguably the biggest babyface in Jim Crockett Promotions at the time of his career ending car accident) not had his career cut so short? Magnum was apparently booked to win the NWA World Title from Ric Flair at the 1986 Starrcade (NWA/WCW's Wrestlemania). Would Sting still have gotten to where he got in the same time span with a healthy Magnum still around? Also, would Jim Crockett still had been forced to sell out to Ted Turner in the same time span despite Magnum still being a top draw?
  • At the time of his accident, Magnum was feuding with Nikita Koloff. Like Magnum, Koloff's career is an example of What Could Have Been. In 1988, he took a year off from the ring to care for his dying wife. In 1992, a neck injury would result in Nikita's premature retirement.
• In late 1993, the WWF decided to revive the previously inactive Women's Championship by bringing in Madusa, under the new name Alundra Blayze, who would win the title in December of that year. A few months later, in 1994, the WWF brought in legendary AJW wrestler Bull Nakano to face off against Blayze, and the two would engage in a heated rivalry that lasted throughout the rest of the year and produced good matches. In 1995, the WWF signed Rhonda Sing, bringing her in as vicious yet comedic heel Bertha Faye, the trailer trash girlfriend of Harvey Wippleman. Since Blayze would be out for a few months getting plastic surgery after Faye broke her nose in her debut, the plan was for Faye to feud with Bull until Blayze returned and then build the division up from there. However, Bull was found in possession of cocaine and subsequently fired, leaving Faye without a feud, and by the end of the year, frustrated with her gimmick and being told she couldn't perform her signature powerbomb as Sycho Sid was using it as his Finishing Move, Sing had left. At Survivor Series 1995, WWF brought in more women from AJW (Sakie Hasegawa, Chaparita ASARI, Kyoko Inoue, Aja Kong, Tomoko Watanabe and Lioness Asuka) with the intention of building Aja Kong up as Blayze's next challenger, as she picked up wins over the next few weeks on Monday Night Raw and was scheduled to face Blayze for the belt at the 1996 Royal Rumble. However, Blayze did not like Kong, who was notoriously stiff and refused to work with her, instead sitting out the last month of her contract and refusing to re-sign while she was still champion. The WWF abandoned its women's division before bringing it back three years later. It's a story full of what ifs: would the plan to build a solid division around Bull, Faye and Blayze have succeeded if Bull hadn't been fired? Would fan interest have continued if the Blayze/Kong feud had gone off as planned, and if so, would WWE keep the focus on bringing in actual women wrestlers (be it American girls, Japanese joshi or Mexican luchadoras)?
  • Of course, the kicker to all of this was the fact that the day her contract with WWF expired, she showed up on WCW Monday Nitro as Madusa with the WWF Women's Championship belt...which she then proceeded to toss in the trash.
    • The really painful part? The massive loss of face Vince suffered from Madusa's action is believed to be part of why he pulled The Montreal Screwjob.
• Mark Henry was briefly considered to break The Undertaker's streak.
  • According to Kurt Angle, he was considered to end Undertaker's streak at Wrestlemania 22 in a match for the World Heavyweight Championship instead of at No Way Out 2006. Undertaker was willing to take the loss because he hadn't had a 5 Star Wrestlemania match and the writing team was willing to do it to keep Angle looking strong as champion. If this had happened, would Rey Mysterio, Jr. have gained the World Heavyweight Championship during the Eddiesploitation angle?
    • As for the Eddiesploitation angle, would Chavo's career be different if he hadn't turned it down as their original choice?
• Scott Hall was going to be part of WCW's Dangerous Alliance in 1992.
  • He was also supposed to beat Steve Austin in their Wrestlemania X8 match but Austin pretty much shot it down as hard as he could, not wanting to lose to the 'invading' force of the nWo. It pretty much killed the entire storyline dead.
• UFC's Mike Goldberg was WWE's original choice to replace Jim Ross in 2005. Goldberg declined because he would have to give up his announcing gig at Fox Sports Net.
• Smackdown was pitched as an all divas show.
  • Similarly, Spike TV briefly considered giving TNA a timeslot for an all-knockouts show. This was at a time when the Gail Kim / Awesome Kong feud was drawing the highest quarter-hour ratings on Impact, so who knows what might have happened with a weekly program dedicated completely to the knockouts?
• Had Brian Pillman not died of a overdose, his storyline with Goldust would have ended with him stealing Goldust's wife Terri Runnels.
• Vince McMahon, JBL or Triple H were all choices for revealing of the anonymous Raw GM in summer 2010.
• With each passing interview, Paul Heyman makes TNA fans (and even WWE fans that just want competition) more and more wistful every time an interviewer asks him what it would be like if he did sign and book for TNA back in 2010. His goal: take the company public in two years by cutting everyone over 40 save one for name value, book around the newer talent, plus outright STEAL Daniel Bryan Danielson after his firing and make him an unstoppable submission machine with an eventual showdown with Kurt Angle. Every time a plan is mentioned, thousands of wrestling fans weep.
  • And Heyman's original plans for the disastrous December to Dismember main event? Use UFC style vignettes to sell that match in the weeks leading up to it (they were filmed but never used, the concept was recycled for Wrestlemania 25's opening), then in the actual match itself, start it off with CM Punk choking out and eliminating The Big Show in the first five minutes to ensure a new champion (an idea which Big Show liked and Vince hated). A lot better than the attempt to turn Bobby Lashley into the next Goldberg.
  • Jim Ross was also rumored to run to TNA when his contract expired in April 2010.
• Had Edge had not retired, one of the possibilities for Wrestlemania 27 would had been Christian turning on him.
  • The event happened before his retirement, though. They just decided not to go with it. Although, they may have just been pulling it back for a future event…
• Hulk Hogan was trained by shoot wrestler Hiro Matsuda, and was apparently possessed of actual skill in the ring if his matches in Japan are any indication, especially one 1993 match which saw Hogan pull an Enzugiri on the Great Muta of all people. Hogan states in his first autobiography Hollywood Hulk Hogan that in the US under Vince Sr. he was told to wrestle like a generic power wrestler, and this followed him throughout his in-ring career for the rest of his days in the US, to the point that when he got to WCW, it was so ingrained into wrestling fans to assume Hogan got by only on "mediocre" wrestling skills and an assload of charisma that he never bothered to show off what he could really do this side of the Pacific. One has to wonder how things would have been different if Hogan had been able to use his in ring skills AND the charisma he was so well known for in the US. Interestingly, shortly before his return to the WWF under Vince Jr. he came within a hair's breadth of becoming NWA world champion by going to a draw with Harley Race for the belt just a month, give or take, before the first Starrcade. More questions to haunt the fans on what could have been.
• John Cena might have been fired if Stephanie hadn't overheard him freestyling, leading to him dressing and rapping like Vanilla Ice two weeks later on the Halloween episode of Smackdown.
• Injuries kept Hogan from entering TNA in 2004, which would have had him feuding with Jeff Jarrett for the NWA Championship at the inaugural Victory Road.
• The Rock and Edge had custom WWF/WWE Championship belts designed but they were not used. The Rock's belt, which had been the successor to Austin's Smokin's Skull belt, had the Brahma Bull logo but was reportedly lost in the mail. Edge's belt was far different than the Rated R Spinner belt but was scrapped due to time constraints. One could only imagine that Cena Spinner could have been a one off instead of a seven year itch.
• If Triple H hadn't suffered his Game-Breaking Injury in 2001, he would have turned face and restarted his feud with a heel Austin.
• The Juniors division of Smackdown was an attempt to relaunch the Cruiserweight Division (considered dark match/B-show material) until a mix up caused the WWE to pick up mostly midget wrestlers.
• Had Brock Lesnar not left in 2004, we would had reprised his feud with The Undertaker now back as the "Original Deadman".
• Shortly before his death, "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig was considered as a possible contender for Jeff Jarrett's NWA World title.
• "Macho Man" Randy Savage's surprise appearance at TNA's first pay-per-view was going to lead to a feud with Jeff Jarrett. However, Hulk Hogan (not knowing that Savage was scheduled to appear) decided to visit backstage since he lives nearby. As soon as Savage saw Hogan, he immediately cancelled all future appearances, save for a tag-team match at the next PPV.
• If Evan Bourne and R-Truth had not gotten suspended, the team of Awesome Truth would have won the Tag Team Titles following Survivor Series.
• Mankind vs. the Undertaker... on Alcatraz Island.
• Had the "MSG Incident" not taken place in 1996, Triple H, not Stone Cold Steve Austin, would have won the King of the Ring tournament that year. Of course, Austin's KotR victory speech was where he coined "Austin 3:16" and is looked on as a pivotal moment in his ascent to the top of the wrestling industry, so the face of the business would have looked very different indeed if Triple H had won the tournament.
• William Regal was receiving a major push for the WWE title in 2008. By his own admission, he got self-conscious, started using steroids, got caught, and got suspended. Nowadays, he's barely on TV.
• CM Punk's feud with Kevin Nash got derailed by, of all things, Plavix. Nash took the anti-artery blockage drug for hereditary reasons due to his father's early death by heart attack at 36. When it came time for Punk and Nash to have the match, the pre-match blood test detected the Plavix and the doctors refused to clear Nash to wrestle. The storyline would have revealed John Laurinaitis instead of Nash as the one to put the hit out on Punk, trying to drive out COO Triple H and take over the company.
• Had Edge's body held up one more year, he would have ended his career at Wrestlemania 28 against Christian.
• Mid-card wrestler Tonga Fifita (known as Haku in WWF and Meng in WCW) was asked to join UFC based on his reputation as the toughest man in wrestling. WCW supported his departure, but Tonga turned it down, believing his conditioning wasn't suited for legitimate competition.
• Booker T was slated to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H at WrestleMania XIX, but at the time, Booker T was contemplating retirement, and the WWE was in the process of signing Goldberg. Or if rumors are to be believed, Triple H lobbied to retain the championship.
• Bret Hart's 2006 DVD documentary, Bret Hart: The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be, was to have been a Take That documentary called Screwed: The Bret Hart Story (named after the Montreal Screwjob), and would have been in line with The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior produced a year earlier.
• * The Mr. Perfect gimmick was originally planned to go to Terry Taylor. However, Curt Hennig signed with the company at around the same time as Taylor and sported a similar look and style. It was decided the two would wrestle dark matches throughout the summer and whoever impressed the writers more would get the gimmick. Poor Taylor ended up becoming a rooster.
• Ted DiBiase was supposed to win the WWF title at Wrestlemania IV. The problem was that Randy Savage was supposed to win the Intercontinental Title from the Honky Tonk Man at an earlier Saturday Night's Main Event. Honky, however, refused to drop the title and threatened to quit the company and sign with the NWA. Honky was allowed to keep the title, so now Savage was upset, so Savage was given the WWF title at Wrestlemania. DiBiase was now upset, but apparently not enough since he was given the Million Dollar Belt as compensation.
• Brodus Clay's Funkasaurus gimmick actually had a link between the monster heel promos and his current form. Clay would have debuted the monster heel gimmick but would turn on Laurinitis (for stalling his debut for so long) and later debut the dancing gimmick.

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