10 Times WWE Tried (And Failed) To Swerve The Fans

A passionate John Cena came down to the ring this past week on Raw to announce that, contrary to recent reports, he is definitely, 100% not going to be facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania 34.

Naturally, everyone has taken this as a sign that he is definitely, 100% going to be facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania 34. Why else would he even mention it? It'd be like a villain in a Bond movie hijacking the airwaves to confirm that he isn't interested in taking over the world.

While it's possible that we are entering a brave new era where WWE is to openly reference any and all rumours that start gathering pace on the internet, it seems likely that this is all in aid of a big swerve, whose reveal will be made in a couple of weeks when The Deadman "unexpectedly" rises from the grave.

We could all be wrong here, of course, but thanks to years of experience in calling Vince McMahon's bluff, die-hard fans have developed a pretty good nose for knowing a half-baked swerve when they see one...

Did anyone on the planet, even for a moment, really believe that Randy Orton was going to forego his opportunity to challenge for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania last year out of deference for Bray Wyatt?

Perhaps this plot device would have been halfway plausible if Orton's association with The Eater of Worlds went back two or three years, but they had only been an item for a matter of months when The Viper won the Royal Rumble. More than anything, this just smacked of playing for time.

With weeks to go until the Show of Shows, the SmackDown writers needed some conflict beyond the usual humdrum of two wrestlers arguing about who is going to win when they finally lock horns.

But though they succeeded in throwing a Luke Harper-sized spanner in the works, it always seemed hugely unlikely that he was going to get into the title match at the expense of Orton, who - shock, horror - showed his true colours soon after by burning down the Wyatt compound.