10 WWE Matches Improved By Last Minutes Changes
Thank heavens for these eleventh hour alterations.
As the old saying goes, "The best laid plans of mice and men can still go wrong." Just replace the word "mice" with "big sweaty men in tiny underwear" and the same applies to the world of professional wrestling.
Wrestling works best when it is planned out well in advance. That way bookers can slowly set the scene for a big pay-off match with little hints and subtle character developments.
Unfortunately, injuries, illness, or other acts of God can get in the way of these goals and throw months of work into complete disarray. That being said, sometimes accidents aren't as misfortunate as they first appear.
The history books show dozens of examples of last-minute changes working in wrestling matches favour.
Whether new stars were created by serendipity, stupid storylines were abruptly dropped, or better wrestlers ended up taking spots in matches, the following ten trades were all made just in time and were all the right thing to do.
In some cases they didn't just improve their matches, but made a piece of wrestling history, and you will shudder when you think about what could have happened if these switcheroos were never pulled.
10. The Undertaker Vs Big Show - Great American Bash 2006
Look, we never said these changes made the match good. We just said they made them better.
The first ever Punjabi Prison match was not good. In fact, you could barely call it a match. It was two giant dudes slowly walking around a big wooden cage for 20 minutes until one of them fell through the wall.
However, it could have been so much worse.
The original idea for the contest was to have The Undertaker face off against The Great Khali in a match type that the Indian superstar "created" himself. But this was Great American Bash 2006, also known as the night of elevated liver enzymes.
Two wrestlers were pulled from the event as a result of this mysterious condition, one of whom was Khali. In a last-minute bit of shuffling around, Teddy Long took him out of his own match and put The Big Show in his place.
The end result was still horrible, but that's because the Punjabi Prison is cursed. Khali would have made things a whole lot worse, as we saw in his match with Batista in the same structure the following year.