10 Articles You Won't Believe WWE.com Once Posted!
6. Jerry Jarrett And Vladimir Kozlov?
It was an article that stopped you in your tracks and made you go “Huh?” This was a strange news story involving one of the founders of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and the wrestler WWE heavily pushed down fans’ throats as an unstoppable wrecking machine throughout 2008 as Vladimir Kozlov.
In October 2005 WWE.com posted ‘Longtime wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett met with WWE officials this morning in Stamford, Conn., and he was not alone. By Jarrett’s side throughout his meetings with Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis (Vice President of Talent Relations for WWE) was a 6-foot-6, 310 pound monster of a man called Oleg Prudius.’ They even posted a picture of Jerry and Oleg (the future Vladimir Kozlov) conversing in WWE headquarters.
WWE.com promoted the news story as a way to make it seem the company got the better of TNA at the time. It was very attention-grabbing given TNA were then seen by many as the one-day main competitor of WWE and had a lot of buzz/hype around them.
Jerry actually originally tried to get Oleg booked for TNA but they turned him down for monetary reasons. They didn’t have a developmental territory and weren’t willing to invest in a wrestler that couldn’t produce immediate results for the company. So Jerry went a step further and gave Director of Talent Relations for WWE John Laurinaitis a call and WWE signed him to a contract straightaway.