10 Times WWE REJECTED Million Dollar Ideas
Passing on future stars and giving away golden opportunities, by supposed Titans of industry...
Good pro wrestling is often about good instincts, and Vince McMahon used to have pretty great ones.
As lucky as he was smart during his peak years, McMahon used to work in conjunction with his talent rather than in total autonomous control. Even the bad ideas had good intentions - McMahon's mentality in making Dean Douglas a wrestling teacher was because he'd worked in schools before getting into wrestling, if a guy told you he could be sick in a bin on command, you'd sort of want to see it, and so on. If the pitch was lousy, it was still happening in the top floor of an audacious silver tower built by all the golden concepts he'd flogged at one point or another.
He also spotted Vince Russo's particular talents right as he was peaking as a creative force. The story of him throwing a Raw Magazine down on a conference room table in 1997 and ordering his inner circle to make the show like the in-house rag is legendary.
But it always comes back around to fortune as much as foreshadowing. And he wasn't thinking himself lucky when he knocked these golden opportunities back...
10. WarGames
Until they did, and it made millions In ticket sales, merchandise and fan engagement.
Between 2012 and 2021, Triple H's NXT was as much an exercise in wish fulfilment as it was a developmental brand.
'The Game' got to work with some of his favourite people, reverse a narrative that he was the scourge of the internet wrestling fan, and even bring back some of his favourite WCW concepts Vince McMahon wouldn't touch on the main roster.
WarGames' TakeOver debut was a full 15 years after 'The Game' tried to get one over the line with his Father-In-Law. The Elimination Chamber was more of a punishment than a compromise - Hunter absorbed a nightmare injury in the maiden outing for the structure, and wrestlers spoke about just how painful it was to bump in, on and off of until major upgrades were made in 2017.
With the home grown concept polished up in the February, Hunter only had to wait until November to get what he wanted all along. By then, he wasn't required to bump in either.