101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened

Onscreen and behind closed doors alike, WWE's mindset towards 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin shifted on 10 June 2002. Heads started shaking, people rallied together behind Vince McMahon's own tut-tutting, and Austin was roundly criticised for "walking out" on the promotion because he didn't like the creative direction his character had been going in.

Truthfully, 'Stone Cold' was a powder keg by June '02. He'd been pushed further and further down the card after carrying business for years, he'd been handed the worst version of Scott Hall at WrestleMania X8, and now Vince wanted him to put over rising 'Beast' Brock Lesnar in a King Of The Ring qualifier on Raw.

Screw that, Austin said. He "took his ball and went home" without much warning.

The shocking thing here isn't so much that Steve left the building and booked a flight. That's been covered to death ever since it happened, and Austin eventually patched things up with management anyway. No, the most surprising aspect is that WWE wanted to burn this bout so casually when it could’ve made serious money on pay-per-view.

Austin knew that, which is why he was fuming at the thought of putting Brock over on some random Raw without any build up or really any momentum to head into the bout with at all. To his credit, Lesnar refused to take this personally. Even he could see that this was bigger to 'Stone Cold' than declining a job.

WWE would never get to book that match, but Brock and Austin did have a few run-ins on TV after the fact.