8 People You Won't Believe ALMOST Became A Wrestling Champion
Demolition Men (and Women)
Braun Strowman will never win the WWE or Universal Title if said strap is wrapped around the waist of Brock Lesnar.
'The Beast' has twice trampled all over the aura of 'The Monster Among Men' in one-on-one pay-per-view situations, and had no problem serving him an infamous "ease up" shot or two when the two shared the Royal Rumble 2018 stage with Kane. On that night, the 'Big Red Machine' was included to insert a bit of colour and take the loss, but he's not the only man to be the third man between WWE's biggest behemoths. Roman Reigns and The Undertaker had also out-gianted Strowman in a weird realisation of a Dave Meltzer-ism about Vince McMahon forgetting how to ride a bike.
It told of McMahon's propensity for always pushing the monsters suddenly failing him at the very worst time - Strowman was as popular with the workrate fanbase as he was with the broader populous as he presumably once was the Chairman himself and yet sadly the times had a-changed. Writers and critics prophesying with their pen kept their eyes wide, but the chance might not come again.
Braun Strowman - Braun Strowman - may not ever win the gold he wants, but this lot came within one top level signoff of getting more than they probably ever could have hoped for...
8. Tank Abbott
A pitch so bad it supposedly lost Vince Russo his tenuous place at WCW's top table, wrestling apocrypha has it that the struggling creative head honcho wanted the shock-and-awe from a Tank Abbott WCW Championship win as his Atlanta hail mary - it'd be his last act for months.
A tumultuous late-1999 start for the former WWE head writer had resulted in several wrestlers and pundits wondering aloud if Russo had been sent down from Stamford to pick at the grisly remains of a rotting opposition. Tank Abbott: WCW Champion was considered the gambit too far, even though the company would find ways to top it for stupidity following his return from exile just months later.
Abbott's own booking was one of those things - he'd gone from dangerous ex-UFC killer to comedy character in the sort of creative cul-de-sac the character simply couldn't survive. In that time, WCW had done more damage to the belt he was pitched to win by repeated title changes and an infamous run for actor David Arquette. Upon reflection over the final 18 months or so of the company's existence, the idea seemed relatively quaint.