12 Biggest WWE Storylines Ever (And How You Never Saw Them Coming)
An end has a start...
When Drew McIntyre introduced a countdown before his Claymore and swaggered about like he'd been necking Buckfast in Gorilla on the December 30th, 2019 edition of Raw, it struck like a live lightning bolt on such a stale, taped edition of the show.
Embodying everything that made Kevin Nash the coolest guy in any room, Drew walked not with the grizzled slow-step of an underwhelming year but the cocksure strut of a man heading for a career high. Finally he'd understood how to justify and monetise that comparison. Did he know he was in with a genuine shot of winning the Royal Rumble even then?
He became the pick of the optimists and the sudden new hope for a set of fans - your writer included - that had long tired of the miserable heel sidekick role he'd portrayed since his main roster call-up in 2018.
After just three more weeks of this, he was selected not just to eliminate Brock Lesnar from the Rumble match but go on to win the whole and set up a WWE Championship match on the grandest stage. Few, if any saw this coming on Week One, but then pushes of this nature aren't actually supposed to happen so quickly.
Pro wrestling moments of actual magnitude are supposed to mirror the vaunted butterfly effect - the wing-flapping isn't ever as obvious as the eventual earthquake...
12. Hulk Hogan Saves Bob Backlund As His Friend In 1983, To Sideline Into The Title Shot
When Hulk Hogan returned to the World Wrestling Federation as Bob Backlund's mystery partner in an angle with the Wild Samoans in late-1983, it wasn't the mammoth heel that left the organisation for Hollywood years earlier.
'The Hulkster' had gained significant acclaim in his Rocky III role that had carried over to an AWA run that promoter Verne Gagne persistently refused to go all in on. Having not been booked to dominate and run the territory as its champion, Hogan's head was turned by a Vince McMahon rocket-strapping that made them both millionaires.
A mammoth response from the live crowd was an indicator that the Chairman had made exactly the right call, and the company doubled down on his arrival with a ringing endorsement by former top babyface Backlund as he tacitly stepped aside.
"He's changed his ways, he's a great man...I'm gonna give him a hand and good luck" were the last words from the history-making former champion as he passed the torch to new type of company figurehead.