Plans Change: How Several Originally Planned WWE Matches Changed This year

Several plans have changed for WWE since the fall, specifically late November to early December. Between Fightful and WrestlingNews.co, numerous of those have been covered. We’re going to look at a few each day.

Raquel Rodriguez vs. Ronda Rousey Royal Rumble: Originally set to take place at the WWE Royal Rumble, the match was moved up a full month, and gained a ton of positive reception from both people backstage and fans. Rousey would shortly drop the title after that to Charlotte Flair, who was a last-minute decision to compete and win the title that night. Charlotte herself didn’t even know that was the plan until the night of. We’re told Rousey preferred working with Shayna Baszler in a tag team.

Edge vs. Demon Finn Balor Hell in a Cell Royal Rumble: The Edge/Judgment Day feud continues as we speak, but Royal Rumble was to feature a pivotal match. It didn’t end up happening due to Edge’s filming schedule, but one of the tentatively planned matches for the show was Demon Balor vs. Edge in a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania. Several in the company we spoke to admitted the feud needed the buzz of Demon Balor and Hell in a Cell, but wondered how exactly Demon Balor would have fit working as a heel against Edge.

Becky Lynch vs. Bayley: The cage match that the two eventually had in February was originally scheduled for WWE Raw 30. However, several that we spoke to backstage called it a “blessing in disguise” that plans changed as a lot more juice was added to the story. Due to a Bloodline segment going over time, the option of having a “way too short” match or doing an angle to build to a future match was presented, with the latter winning out. The two would end up main eventing WWE Raw a couple of weeks later, adding to the story at Royal Rumble, and also getting Lita involved.

Logan Paul vs. John Cena WrestleMania: Things changed pretty quickly for this one. Heading into Survivor Series, the internal, working plan was for Logan Paul to take on John Cena. However, a month later, WWE was pulling Austin Theory from a Toronto live event to secretly film a segment with Cena at the December 30 WWE Smackdown in Tampa.

Ronda Rousey vs. Rhea Ripley, WrestleMania: Dating back to November, the creative plans for the Royal Rumble winner were effectively set. Rhea Ripley was set to win, and challenge the Smackdown Women’s Champion. At that time, it looked like that would be Ronda Rousey, who was slated to hold the Smackdown Title until April. When Rousey took time off, and Charlotte won the championship last-minute, creative plans were changed to have Charlotte winning the title.

Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair, WrestleMania: Ronda Rousey’s creative adjustments also caused some adjustments to this match. As of November, Charlotte was actually slated to return to the WWE Raw brand, before Rousey took January off and she picked up the title. While many speculated Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair as a WrestleMania match, we haven’t seen any plans that indicate that was suggested.

Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes or Drew McIntyre Title Match: A lot has changed since November, clearly, because none of these three people are involved with each other at all. Rundowns as of that period had two title matches happening, this one on night one, and another on night two. Cody Rhodes was listed as an option for both of them, with “TBA/Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns” being set as a WWE Universal Title match, and Rollins vs. Rhodes/Drew as a WWE Championship match. Rhodes was always set to win the Royal Rumble as one would expect, but the Drew McIntyre/Sheamus team took off, and Seth Rollins moved on to Logan Paul, and the extra title match was nixed altogether.

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