101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened
100. The Curious Case Of Lloyd Boner
That subheading sounds like the title of an early-2000s teen movie.
Bryan Danielson pitched Lloyd Boner and Buddy Peacock as ring names when he joined WWE in 2009. It was actually William Regal who warned him against it, because he wondered if the technical wizard would've been shooting himself in the foot. Or shooting himself in the...Peacock? Never mind.
The 'American Dragon's' thinking wasn't as skewed as it might appear at first. He realised that the company was obsessed with sports entertainment silliness under Vince, and he wanted to make an immediate impression. Maybe having the name "Boner" wouldn't have been the way to go about it, right enough.
Imagine an arena full of people screaming that?! 'Boner! Boner! Boner!'. It'd be like all of John Cena's worst recurring nightmares - he used to worry about popping one in those jorts many moons ago. That fair puts a different outlook on mega-bouts vs. Triple H, Batista and others, doesn't it?
Eventually, Danielson's real name was tweaked to Daniel Bryan, and the rest is history. It's impossible to envision him headlining WrestleMania XXX or hoisting belts high above his head as Buddy Peacock, put it that way. Even the McMahon family wouldn't push someone with that moniker to the forefront of their biggest event.
Also, you just know WWE wouldn't have been able to resist forcing announcers like Michael Cole to say that someone had been 'outwrestled by Boner' when Bryan bamboozled them with tech-savvy moves inside the ring on NXT, then Raw and SmackDown.
Restraint has never been WWE's way.