WWE often touts the road to WrestleMania as being full of twists and turns, but sometimes it’s the company itself that is caught off guard by situations that arise ahead of its biggest event of the year.
From scandals to injuries to global pandemics, all kinds of things throughout the years have prevented some planned WrestleMania matches from taking place.
Here are seven WWE WrestleMania matches that ended up being scrapped.
7. Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman – WrestleMania 34
The plan all along had been for WrestleMania 34’s main event to be a rematch of the Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar showdown three years earlier, which had ended without either man winning after Seth Rollins cashed in his Money In The Bank briefcase to pull off the ‘heist of the century’.
But in January 2018, the plan was thrown into doubt when Reigns found himself on the fringes of a scandal: he was named as an alleged client of a convicted steroid dealer, and there were fears within the company that he might become further embroiled if any incriminating evidence came to light.
Reportedly as a backup plan, WWE booked Braun Strowman particularly strongly on the road to WrestleMania, including an impressively dominant performance in the Elimination Chamber. He was then removed from a planned Intercontinental Title match against The Miz, in case he had to be slotted into the main event at short notice.
Fortunately, Reigns emerged unscathed from the scandal and went on to face Lesnar as planned, while Strowman won the Raw Tag Titles with a 10-year-old.
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6. The Undertaker vs. Sting – WrestleMania 27
Ever since it had put its main opposition out of business a decade earlier, WWE had been eager to strike a deal with the one WCW mainstay who had thus far held back from working with them.
Sting had almost signed on the dotted line for a Mania match with Kurt Angle way back in 2002, but was wary of whether he would be presented on screen in a respectful way, given how some other former WCW names had fared in Vince McMahon’s world.
Nine years later it looked like the stars were aligning: Sting’s TNA contract was about to expire, and he was offered a big money match against Undertaker as well as a Hall of Fame induction, which would have been particularly apt since WrestleMania was in WCW’s home city of Atlanta that year.
Some mysterious vignettes alluding to his impending debut even aired on WWE television – but in the end he got cold feet again and pulled out. It would be another three years before he finally showed up in WWE, and he never had that dream match against the Undertaker.
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5. Razor Ramon vs. Goldust (Miami Street Fight) – WrestleMania 12
At the beginning of 1996, Razor Ramon and Goldust were locked in a feud for the Intercontinental Title, with the latter beating the former for the title at January’s Royal Rumble.
The initial plans for WrestleMania involved a rematch between the two, in a cinematic match filmed on the streets of Miami that would be broadcast ‘live’ to the fans in Anaheim’s Arrowhead Pond.
However, Ramon (Scott Hall) was planning to jump ship to WCW, and had reportedly handed in his notice prior to WrestleMania. By complete coincidence, he was then suspended for six weeks due to drug use, and missed the show entirely. There were also reports in some quarters that Hall was not comfortable working with the overtly homoerotic Goldust character.
In any event, the match was switched to a Hollywood Backlot Brawl featuring Goldust against Roddy Piper, which mimicked OJ Simpson’s notorious car chase through the streets of Los Angeles – a moment that was still fresh in everyone’s minds in April 1996.
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4. Chris Jericho vs. Mickey Rourke – WrestleMania 25
In 2008, Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke made a successful comeback in critically acclaimed movie ‘The Wrestler’. Despite the fact that the film didn’t portray the industry in a particularly flattering light, WWE wanted Rourke for their biggest show of the year.
Before any deal was public, Rourke took it upon himself to announce at an awards ceremony in January 2009 that he would face Jericho at WrestleMania.
The two men then had a planned confrontation on ‘Larry King Live’, but somewhere along the way Rourke started taking exception to Jericho’s insults, which were intended purely to build tension for the match. Rourke pulled out of the match, only to be persuaded to at least attend the show and have a physical altercation with Jericho.
It ended up with Rourke being in the front row (flanked by two MMA fighters in case things went off-script), and finally entering the ring for a scripted altercation with Jericho, who had just won a match against three Hall of Fame wrestlers – Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper and Ricky Steamboat.
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3. Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff – WrestleMania 3
Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant is perhaps the most iconic main event in wrestling history, and may also have been the most hotly anticipated – but Vince McMahon was sufficiently concerned about its chances that he had a backup plan.
Andre was in bad physical condition by this point of his life and had to have major surgery on his back before the show in order to compete.
Meanwhile, Orndorff had been feuding with Hogan during the winter, and the two had even clashed in a steel cage match at the start of 1987 on Saturday Night’s Main Event, so he was the obvious substitute if Andre couldn’t go. Even this wasn’t an ideal plan though, as Orndorff was also in need of surgery, thanks to a weightlifting accident affecting his right arm.
In the end, Andre made it through the match – reportedly with the help of several bottles of wine – but history could have been very different.
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2. ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin vs. Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart – WrestleMania 14
With Shawn Michaels out of the picture, Bret Hart ended up facing Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 in a match that is still regarded as one of the finest that the Show of Shows has ever produced.
That legendary bout cemented Stone Cold as a beloved antihero, while the Hitman spent the rest of his WWF tenure as a whining heel who openly criticized the debauched direction in which he felt the company’s product was heading.
It was clear by the middle of 1997 that Austin was the next big star in the company, and plans were put in place for his coronation as WWF champion at WrestleMania 14.
Originally the man he was set to dethrone was Hart, in a rematch from 12 months earlier. But as we know, Bret had left the company in highly dramatic fashion before WrestleMania season rolled around, with Michaels taking the title from him as he left – so it was the Heartbreak Kid who did the honors for the Texas Rattlesnake in Boston the following March.
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1. Roman Reigns vs. The Fiend (or Goldberg) – WrestleMania 36
Undoubtedly the most talked about WWE wrestler of 2019 was The Fiend – the latest incarnation of creative mastermind Bray Wyatt, based on the seemingly invincible monsters found in horror movies.
Wyatt beat Seth Rollins on Halloween to win the Universal Championship, and the idea going forward was to book him as an unbeatable demon until he came up against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
Two things stopped that match from happening. The first was Goldberg, whose return in February 2020 unexpectedly saw him beat The Fiend for the title, demolishing the aura surrounding the character. Vince had changed plans for WrestleMania, wanting Reigns to challenge Goldberg for the title. But then another unexpected twist happened: a global pandemic.
Given his history of leukemia, Reigns chose to isolate rather than participate in the behind-closed-doors version of Mania that took place in the WWE Performance Center – so Goldberg ended up facing Braun Strowman instead. Reigns returned at SummerSlam later in the year, where he attacked – you guessed it – The Fiend.
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