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What's the story?
The author of WWE sanctioned book Creating The Mania: An Inside Look At How WrestleMania Comes To Life recently spoke with The Wrestling Estate and revealed how the card for WrestleMania 34 could have been very different.
Jon Robinson revealed that Seth Rollins may not have won the Intercontinental Championship and that Kurt Angle may not have been Ronda Rousey's partner had original plans for both men gone ahead.
In case you didn't know...
Jon Robinson was asked by WWE to write the book Creating The Mania: An Inside Look at how WrestleMania Comes to Life - a book speaking about everything that goes into the planning of The Grandest Stage of them All and delivering personal accounts from WWE Superstars about the monumental pay-per-view.
"WWE came to me to write it, saying I'd be the perfect guy. I loved the concept, but I was a little leery of WWE actually giving me the access I needed in order to write the book."
Robinson added that he wanted assurances he would get behind-the-scenes access to the Superstars and the creative team.
I wanted everybody to be honest with me. WWE was like, yeah, we're 100% down for this book, just give us a list of people you want to interview I don't think they expected my list to be as extensive as it was.
The author detailed how happy he was with the names who agreed to speak with him regarding WrestleMania 34.
I threw out a list of 50 names, everyone from Roman Reigns to the head of creative to the mayor of New Orleans. The mayor turned me down, but everyone else talked to me.
The heart of the matter
During this year's WrestleMania season, things seemed to run very smoothly considering how many injuries WWE has been dealing with since the turn of the year, but things could have been very different as it has been revealed that very different matches were planned for Kurt Angle and Seth Rollins, and that The Usos, The New Day and Kevin Owens all wanted different roles.
Jon Robinson spoke with The Wrestling Estate and discussed some of the matches that certain talents were hoping to have at WrestleMania 34, confirming that Kevin Owens wanted to face off against Vince McMahon after headbutting the Chairman in September. Owens would instead team with Sami Zayn in a losing effort to Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon.
Kevin Owens was hoping to wrestle Vince McMahon after the headbutt incident.
Robinson also details that The Usos and The New Day were apparently hoping for a Tag Team TLC match, but both ended up losing to The Bludgeon Brothers in a Triple Threat Match.
Look at the Usos. In character, they've always wanted to be on the main card of WrestleMania, but in real life, it means so much to them, especially with the legacy of their father.
They pushed so hard throughout the year to be able to get to WrestleMania. There were so many matches being pitched behind the scenes. New Day and Usos were hoping for some kind of TLC match.
The author revealed some of the other matches that were discussed behind the scenes. While Dean Ambrose was sidelined with an injury, his tag team run with Seth Rollins was said to have been gearing up for Seth Rollins vs Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania 34.
Another match nixed due to injury was Jason Jordan vs Kurt Angle. Things didn't end up working out too badly for Rollins or Angle, though, with Rollins winning the Intercontinental Champion to seal his spot in history as a Grand Slam Champion, and with Kurt Angle teaming with Ronda Rousey on her debut in a match spoken about by many as the best on the card.
There were a lot of matches in play that could have completely changed the card. And then you hear from creative about injuries affecting things like Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose, and then Ambrose got injured. They were also trying to do Kurt Angle vs. Jason Jordan, but then Jordan got injured.
What's next?
You can purchase Creating the Mania: An Inside Look at How WrestleMania Comes to Life here to find out more about what went on backstage in the build-up to WrestleMania.
What do you think about WWE's original plans for Mania? Did everything work out better in the long run? Let us know in the comments.
