The 8 Ball: The Top 8 Wrestling Backup Plans

With Finn Balor out injured for several months, possible even missing this year’s WrestleMania, WWE were forced to strip Balor of the Universal Championship just one day after his inaugural title victory over Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. No one benefited from Balor’s injury more than Kevin Owens, who would win a fatal four-way match to be crowned the new champion and Triple H’s new poster boy.

Fitting into his new role at the top of Raw like he was born to it, this emphasizes more the dawn of the New Era, as, rather than fall back on old habits and make a veteran champion, they continued to choose an indie darling and an NXT call-up to help the show. It’s early days yet, but the Prizefighter has been very entertaining in his new role thus far and will hopefully enjoy a lengthy reign as champion.

There’s been a few times when the original plan went south in pro wrestling and a promotion has been forced to back track and work out how best to move forward with what they had. Often times the new direction they took has turned out even better than what was originally promised, with someone getting the spotlight they deserve but never would have had the chance to stand in, or with a story getting an altogether more satisfying payoff than what we may have seen.

Number Eight – Punk Wins Money in the Bank: Money in the Bank has for years been the opportunity to create a new star to break through the glass ceiling. Several performers were thrust into the main event from utilizing the contract to advance the story with them at the helm. Edge had become one of the company’s top heels for cashing in on a bloodied and beaten John Cena. Rob Van Dam became a superstar by cashing in at ECW One Night Stand, using the ECW diehard fans to propel himself to the top. Money in the Bank was always an opportunity for someone to become the next big thing.

At WrestleMania 24, Jeff Hardy was primed to become the next holder of the briefcase. The Intercontinental Champion at the time, he was riding the love of the fans to the top of WWE’s programming. At the point where he was meant to be catapulted and finally take home the gold, he was suspended for violating the company’s Wellness Policy, made to drop the belt to Chris Jericho and written out the WM ladder match.

Left to pick up the pieces, CM Punk ascended the ladder to win the match and cash in for the World Heavyweight Championship against Edge. He had a short and relatively lacklustre reign before losing the belt without even being allowed to defend it in a Championship Scramble Match. Whilst this was an altogether disappointing run, it was certainly the safer choice when compared to the former.

Even after being punished so severely by WWE, Jeff Hardy was given chance after chance to work his way back into the main event and win multiple world championships. Ultimately, after several drug violations, he’d squandered one chance too many and was fired from the company for his troubles. Had Hardy been given the chance to shoot for the moon then and there, he may have come crashing down much worse than he ended up doing.

CM Punk was ultimately the safer option, and he proved this by maintaining popularity enough to win the briefcase a second time and enjoy a long tenure in the company’s main card.

Number Seven – Nitro Becomes Morrison: One of the far more tragic issues in professional wrestling arose when Chris Benoit killed himself and his family. Unaware of why he had failed to show up for Vengeance: Night of Champions, WWE cited a ‘family emergency’ and replaced him in the match with Johnny Nitro. Nitro beat Punk and captured his first world championship on ECW.

From there his gimmick became an exaggeration of how it was previously under MNM. He changed his name to Morrison, inspired by Jim Morrison of The Doors, and became the Tuesday Night Delight. He was cocky and brash, talking down to all comers. He even created his own ’15 Minutes of Fame’ segment, aptly named to fit his narcissistic gimmick.

He eventually dropped the title to CM Punk in order to serve a suspension for violating the Wellness Policy, but upon his return his feud reignited and then he was paired with The Miz in an incredibly entertaining tag team. A team which arguably made Miz’ career in WWE look more promising than it would have done without him.

His run as champ even helped further Punk’s career within the promotion. The two’s personalities and looks were polar opposites of each other. With Morrison acting the brash heel, Punk became his perfect foil and automatically fit as the main person to feud with him for the belt. Morrison being slotted into ECW’s main event scene helped further both men’s careers and made them both eventually be drafted onto Raw and Smackdown respectively.

Ultimately, WWE made the best of a very bad situation. Whilst Benoit would have been a great champion to help steer the ECW ship, what happened to him was too tragic for anyone to predict. Ultimately, his death precipitated change not only in the safety of the company’s work environment, but in the Creative direction of the company moving forward.

Number Six – Jeri-Show: Edge and Chris Jericho were supposed to be a huge tag team. Capturing the belts when Theodore Long threw them together to stop their complaining, they were two accomplished performers who had excelled previously in tag teams with different partners and could help spearhead a dwindling division. Winning the tag team belts with Jericho made Edge a record-setting twelve-time World Tag Team Champion. The future looked bright for these men working together going forward.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. A torn Achilles tendon meant that Edge would be out until his return at the Royal Rumble half a year later. This left Jericho without a partner and no plan going forward. Wanting to keep him running with the same program, WWE made the decision to place The Big Show of all people in the empty slot.

Fans met this initial replacement with derision. How could the lumbering giant possibly be an adequate substitute for one of the most skilled and entertaining members of the roster? As time went on, he demonstrated how being so different to Edge was exactly what he needed to be. Fully utilizing Chris Jericho’s mic skills to put Show over as more monster than he was, the double act’s big man, little man dynamic provided a fresh feel to the then dwindling tag team division.

The two men created strong storylines in tag team wrestling and told great stories in the ring. Their run together was one of the highlights of the World’s Largest Athlete’s career. It also inadvertently turned Edge face for his impending return and gave him a new storyline feud to enter into immediately upon coming back at the Royal Rumble.

Number Five – Cena wins 15th World Title: Daniel Bryan is one of the more saddening stories of WWE’s history. Always the underdog within their programming and backstage politicking, Bryan had no right to be world champion in the eyes of the top guys of the company. Yet through his hard work and overwhelming fan support, Vince and co had no choice but to drape the strap over Bryan’s shoulders.

To the heartbreak of both Bryan and the WWE Universe, due to a neck injury, he was forced to vacate the championship and take several months out to recover. This was the preface for a short return and eventual retirement from professional wrestling. Whilst still maintaining a presence within the company as Smackdown’s General Manager, he’ll never be world champion again, which is a sombre statement to reflect upon.

Upon vacating the belt, there needed to be a new champion and a ladder match was announced for Money in the Bank. Of the names listed in the match, there was really only one option available. That man was John Cena. This was the best possible way for the company to move forward, and whilst many may groan at the idea of Cena holding the belt for a 15th time, it was necessary for the plans that they had coming that summer.

Brock Lesnar was going to take the belt.

Whilst Lesnar vs Bryan would have been an interesting match-up, it wouldn’t have made the Beast Incarnate look like the absolute monster as he did when facing Cena. Instead of praising WWE for having the balls to make Cena’s offense look so weak against Lesnar, they would have been criticised for pushing Bryan down yet again by having him do the favours for a part-timer. Lesnar became a genuine monster by hitting German suplex after German suplex on Big Match John, and there was no better foil for him to have than Cena.

Number Four – Bryan Main Events WMXXX: Speaking of the ultimate underdog never being meant to take the world title. No matter what WWE try to backtrack on, there was absolutely no intention on their part to put the company on Daniel Bryan’s shoulders. The original plan for WrestleMania XXX’s main event was to be Batista vs Randy Orton. Bryan, meanwhile, would be facing Sheamus to complete a trilogy of WM matches.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, but it took a lot to get them there. Firstly, there was the unanimous chants for Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble, and the thunderous boos for final entrant Rey Mysterio, normally a fan favourite, just because he wasn’t Bryan. They booed and berated Batista for winning, turning him heel through sheer derision.

CM Punk left the company due to frustration that he wasn’t in the main event, and lectured Vince McMahon and Triple H for not putting Bryan in the main event, calling them fools. Mick Foley asked WWE if they hated their audience for not giving them what they wanted. As for the fans, #CancelWWENetwork became the number one trend worldwide. This speaks volumes as to how much the fans didn’t want to see Orton vs Batista in the main event.

Finally, the company was convinced and changed the story to make Bryan the underdog champion that he always should have been. He received the spectacle he deserved on the grandest stage of them all.

Number Three – Michaels Returns Against Triple H: After four long years of not wrestling, in 2002, Shawn Michaels returned to WWE to come out of retirement and start wrestling again. Having announced his retirement due to a back injury and enjoying a brief run as WWF Commissioner, he hadn’t appeared on WWE’s programming in 18 months.

The original plan for HBK was to return and enter into a feud with Vince McMahon, having a Street Fight with him at SummerSlam. Michaels, however, was extremely nervous about his in-ring ability after having spent so much time not wrestling. The plans were changed and he was then set to be betrayed upon his return by old DX teammate, Triple H. As Michaels’ real life best friend and long-running stablemate in the ring, HHH promised to walk him through the entirety of their PPV match and help him get to the finish.

Not missing a step, Shawn Michaels delivered an exceptional performance at SummerSlam and continued a feud with HH that would last for years. His return from retirement would last for almost eight years until eventually retiring against The Undertaker at WMXXVI. In those eight years, he delivered some of the best matches of his entire career.

Imagine if the original plan had gone ahead and he had gone up against VKM. He may never have regained the confidence he had against his best friend to continue wrestling after that. We may never have seen the rise of HBK or remembered him the way he deserved to be remembered.

Number Two – Austin 3:16: One of the most infamous moments in all of professional wrestling history was what was known as the ‘curtain call’. In 1996, in Madison Square Garden, after Shawn Michaels defeated Diesel in a singles match, Razor Ramon and Hunter Hearst Helmsley came down to the ring, Michaels picked Diesel up, and the four men, good guys and bad guys alike, all embraced to the screams of the fans.

This broke kayfabe in every sense of the word, and simply was not done by anyone in that time. Considered spitting on the industry by many backstage, WWF needed to deal some level of punishment for what had happened. Unfortunately, both Ramon and Diesel were leaving to jump ship to WCW. Michaels, meanwhile, was not only the WWF Champion, but the star of the show, and therefore untouchable lest you risk the ratings plummeting. This left but one man in Helmsley, who would suffer the brunt of the backlash, being buried for nearly a year.

Scheduled to win the King of the Ring tournament of that year, part of HHH’s punishment was that he would lose out on receiving that accolade. Instead, he lost to Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts in the first round. Now that he was out of the picture, the question remained, who would be winning the King of the Ring.

Enter Stone Cold.

Rising in popularity after dropping ‘The Ringmaster’, he made his way through the tournaments until reaching the finals against Jake ‘The Snake’. Having bested him in the match, he cut a promo on Roberts, targeting him for being a born-again Christian. He delivered this now-iconic promo, and Austin 3:16 was born, parodying John 3:16 and bragging about having whipped Robert’s ass.

Never before had being the bad guy been so cool. This was the beginning not only of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s rise to stardom, but also one of the biggest catalysts for the dawn of the Attitude Era. Imagine how different things would have been if pompous Hunter Hearst Helmsley had won the whole thing instead.

Number One – Hogan is the Third Man: WCW were in the middle of an invasion from The Outsiders, consisting of former WWF employees Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Fighting off the majority of the WCW roster, they were originally billed as if they were a WWF invasion, trying to start a war on Monday Nitro.

Challenging Sting, Lex Luger and Randy Savage to a six-man tag team match for Bash at the Beach, their promised to reveal a third man that was storming the company with them. Originally, the plan was meant to be that Sting was going to be the third man, turning heel and betraying his teammates. However, Sting was not willing to make the turn. Feeling like it betrayed his character and that he needed to stay face, he was adamant that he needed to stay this way.

This provided an opportunity for someone else to fill the third slot. That man became Hollywood Hulk Hogan. After much talking into, Hogan came around to the idea and agreed to turn heel for the first time in nearly fifteen years. His face run with the company had been going stale, and whilst heels like The Outsiders were being supported heavily by the fans, Hulkamania was being met with boos and derision. It was the perfect time to change things up and turned into one of the biggest moments in professional wrestling history.

The nWo led the Monday Night Wars for WCW, and if it wasn’t for Hogan turning heel, his career and the momentum for the company potentially may not have ever had the shot of adrenaline that they did have were Sting to have taken leadership of the group.