THIS Rookie Was Meant To Be The Undertaker's WWE Son
"He looks like he cuts my grass, man."
Appearing on WWE television for a cup of coffee back in late 2008, Hade Vansen was originally intended to be the storyline son of The Undertaker.
This revelation was made by former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. on the latest edition of his Wrestling with Freddie podcast.
As picked up on by WrestlingNews.co, Prinze detailed how the main roster call-up of Vansen - who previously had been working in the FCW developmental territory - was to eventually lead to the shock reveal that the Brit was the son of the legendary Deadman. Unfortunately for Hade, plans changed, his SmackDown vignettes were axed after just a matter of weeks, and he'd soon be handed his WWE release.
This whole situation started when the WWE writers were tasked with finding a new opponent for 'Taker to "run through" at an upcoming PPV before the Phenom then settled down into a feud with Edge. While this would be a decisive victory for The Undertaker, Vince McMahon wanted the opponent to "mean something" and be a fresh talent from FCW.
Prinze says it was he, Angelo Fazio and Chris DeJoseph who came up with the idea of this new superstar claiming Undertaker was his father. After getting this concept okay'd by Michael Hayes, promos were written and vignettes were planned where this debuting grappler would hack the SmackDown TV feed.
As the I Know What You Did Last Summer actor explained:
"So he's cutting these promos and he's doing a good job. So we get the story approved by Freebird and then we get it approved by Vince. We start shooting these little segments and they're airing on television. It's an ongoing thing. He's not calling out The Undertaker, but he's speaking about The Undertaker and you're just waiting to figure out what the reason for it is. It was this father-son thing. So we're building up, I think we get two weeks of TV out of it, then we went to Bristol, Connecticut. We shoot the promo and it's the best one that he's done so far. It's not showtime yet. We shot this but we shot this before the show, because this was the taped show, not the live one, so you had more time to accomplish these goals."
In regards to why plans changed for Hade Vansen, Freddie revealed it was actually a comment from Triple H that completely killed the character:
"So we're in the production meeting and everyone's putting their segments through. Here comes our segment, and nobody said 'boo' the last two weeks or even three weeks of TV that we got out of it. Not one agent. Not Kevin Dunn. Not Vince. Not anybody. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Hunter says, 'Are we seriously going with this guy?' Remember, this is not a pay-per-view match, this is not a guy that would get any sort of offense on The Undertaker. It would just be a build-up for The Undertaker to have something to do so he could smash this guy and then get rolling over to Edge. He [Triple] says, 'Are we really going to go with this guy?' Vince goes, 'What do you mean? What's the problem?' He [Triple H] says, 'He looks like he cuts my grass, man', and Vince laughed. Literally, all the air went out of the room. Like, you could just feel it, because now it's embarrassing to the company. Well, at least from my perspective. You put something on TV for three weeks and then you remove it with no explanation."
It was Freddie Prinze Jr. who had to break the news to Vansen that his huge debut had been scrapped. Instead, Hade was released by WWE on 9 January 2009 - just over three weeks after his first vignette had aired on SmackDown.
As for Vansen himself, he has publicly discussed how his main roster call-up was intended to pair him up against The Undertaker, although the information of him intended to be the kayfabe son of 'Taker hasn't been revealed before.