10 Wrestling Nightmares That Almost Came True
5. Kevin Owens Almost Joined The League Of Nations
This one is strange, in that nothing is a true "career-killer" of a gimmick in WWE, despite WWE almost specialising in killing careers.
That statement is an outrageous contradiction, but it's also true. The sheer chaos with which the promotion operates is the problem and, somehow, the solution: most people are so desensitised to WWE's way of doing things that nothing ever really sticks, the good or the dismal. No performers are stigmatised to the WWE audience because that audience doesn't necessarily watch the promotion for intricate, consistent character arcs.
As recently revealed by PWInsider, Kevin Owens was set to join the League of Nations in November 2015, when he was still hot, but an illness forced him off the show when they debuted and he was promptly written out of it.
This would have been a nightmare scenario, in that the stable was a risible, lazy, antiquated and totally ineffective foreign menace concept, but then, WWE cooled Owens anyway by doing something very similar with his brief 2017 'Face of America' schtick. This, despite the anti-American deal failing for the umpteenth time less than two years prior.
This didn't kill his career - nor did his piss-poor programme with Braun Strowman in 2018 - and Owens enjoyed his best WWE moment this year by headlining WrestleMania with Steve Austin.
Nobody matters, then they matter for a bit, then they don't matter again.
Not quite as snappy as "Then. Now. Forever. Together.", but far more accurate.