101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened
94. Rob Van Dam As WCW’s Glacier
Young gamers who also loved them some wrestling must've been in heaven when WCW started wheeling out Mortal Kombat rip-offs under the guise of 'Blood Runs Cold' in 1996. Characters such as Mortis, Wrath and Glacier were brought to life, and all of them would've been at home in the MK fighting realm.
Hell, Glacier was 100% a Sub Zero tribute. It was a great spot for Ray Lloyd to grab, but he wasn't the first guy WCW asked to assume the role. Nope, they wanted ECW's Rob Van Dam to show off his martial arts skills and athleticism under the Glacier mask instead.
RVD said 'not for me'. He wanted to stay put under Paul Heyman in the land of extreme, perhaps because Van Dam knew there'd be looming interest from the WWF due to an imminent working relationship between both companies. Either that or he had a bad taste in his mouth from doing some enhancement talent work in Atlanta before they offered him the chance to become Glacier.
Rob's decision proved to be the right one. He went from strength to strength in the original ECW, got some high profile spots on Raw on the WWF side in 1997, then eventually made his way to the fed properly once extreme bit the dust in 2001.
Listen, there's a chance that Van Dam would've been WWF bound once WCW went to the wall anyway, but he wasn't into the whole 'Blood Runs Cold' concept. Lloyd was, which is why he netted the gig, but not as first choice.