Which Shocking WWE Star Almost Headlined WrestleMania 7
Be thankful this gimmick change and match didn't happen...
Tugboat.
Yes, it's true. Big Fred Ottman was once considered to be Hulk Hogan's opponent for WrestleMania VII before Sgt. Slaughter entered the frame as a much better alternative. Bruce Prichard claimed on his 'Something To Wrestle With' show that Tuggy would've turned heel on then-on screen pal Hulk and been renamed something like "Sheik Tugboat".
Prichard also added that the company would've come up with a better moniker than that - the "Sheik" deal was just a working title for Vince McMahon to chew on before spitting something superior out.
Eventually, McMahon decided that Slaughter turning his back on the United States was a stronger story than Tugboat doing the same. Sarge had been a huge babyface a decade or so prior, and the WWF boss saw dollar signs in a feud with Hogan.
That left poor Tugboat without a major spot on the biggest show of the year. He'd go on to be renamed Typhoon and form the Natural Disasters tag-team with Earthquake a few months later.
Interestingly enough, Ottman himself recently told Wrestling Inc that he personally knew "very little" about the whole "Sheik' idea. It seems (if it was a tentative plan at all) that nobody told Tugboat much about the gimmick change.