101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened

69. AEW’s TLC Elitists

AEW already has a faction called The Elite, but Matt Hardy wanted to introduce another one with longer lineage stretching right back to the old WWF days. The veteran's plan was simple: Team up with his brother Jeff, Adam Copeland and Christian Cage as a battle-hardened group of salty warriors who'd changed the business back between 1999-2001.

In other words, Matt, Jeff, Cope and Cage would run down younger squads on All Elite's books for failing to show them proper respect they knew they'd earned. It would've been similar to WCW’s Millionaire’s Club or TNA’s Main Event Mafia in execution, albeit with more emphasis placed on the quartet's banging performances alongside The Dudley Boyz in various table, ladder and TLC bouts over the years.

Apparently, Tony Khan wasn't hooked on the concept, because it didn't make air. Who knows if Copeland and Christian would've been up for it themselves - they kinda had their own stuff going on whilst Matt was still under contract to AEW, and it would've taken a while for them to iron out the kinks of their own narrative before teaming up as buddies again.

'TLC Elitists' does sound like something that would've appealed to the company's hardcore wrestling fan audience though. There's a lot of love for what The Hardys, Edge and Christian, The Dudleyz etc achieved in TLC matches over on the WWF/WWE side, so it might even have been a chore to keep the faction heelish for too long.

Khan didn't have to worry about that though - he said nah.