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Since 1979, WWE has been providing fans with plenty of entertainment. The product, and therefore the company, continues to grow each and every year.
WWE has been known as the largest pro wrestling company in the world for almost two decades. They broadcast their shows to millions of viewers in over 150 countries. Even during this pandemic, WWE has managed to continue the production of their shows.
Wrestlers from around the world make their names known in other pro wrestling promotions with the hopes of one day having the opportunity to perform in WWE.
Over the years, WWE has put together some impressive and crazy things. Like The Undertaker going undefeated for 21 straight WrestleManias or Ric Flair and John Cena winning the world title a record 16 times. But everybody knows those facts. There's plenty of interesting trivia that would surprise even hardcore WWE supporters.
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Let's take a look at five things about WWE that most fans probably didn't know.
#5 Former WWE Divas Champion Nikki Bella almost became a pro soccer player
Nikki Bella is a former WWE Divas Champion and one of the most recognizable female Superstars in the world right now. But surprisingly, pro wrestling wasn't her first love.
The Total Divas star was a keen soccer enthusiast, and she played for the Scottsdale Club in elementary school along with her sister, Brie.
In college, she was a key part of the women’s soccer team, one so successful that they won the Pacific Conference Championship.
And it’s not just that she was passionate about the sport. She was gifted on the pitch, too. When she played for the girl's soccer team at Chapparal High in Arizona, she was honored with the MVP award in her first year.
Bella had the dream of going on to play professional soccer for the Arizona Heat Wave. But just a week before she was meant to sign with Arizona State University, she snapped her tibia in half which, so she lost her spot on the soccer team.
Nikki and her sister, Brie, later decided to move to Los Angeles and find an agent. The duo auditioned for the WWE Diva Search in 2006 and became WWE Divas.
#4 Cesaro lost 23 non-title TV singles matches during his WWE United States Championship reign
Cesaro's only championship run in WWE as a singles Superstar is underrated. Many fans forget about it because he has found so much success as a tag team wrestler. It has also been a long time since he held a singles championship.
Months after his debut on WWE SmackDown, Antonio Cesaro challenged Santino Marella for the WWE United States Title.
Cesaro won the US Championship on the WWE SummerSlam 2012 pre-show. This victory looked like the start of a promising career of an extremely talented Superstar, but WWE had other plans.
Cesaro lost 23 non-title singles matches on television during his reign as the United States Champion. It was extremely unfortunate that one of the best wrestlers in the company looked like a jobber for his entire reign.
Cesaro lost the title to Kofi Kingston on the April 15, 2013 episode of WWE RAW. Though he has flourished in the tag team division, many fans still hope that WWE will see the potential in Cesaro and give him another reign as a top Singles Champion.
#3 WWE Royal Rumble almost didn't exist
Every year, fans prepare for the most thrilling PPV of the year, WWE Royal Rumble. The Royal Rumble is probably the second-most popular PPV event in WWE programming, and undoubtedly the most popular gimmick match that WWE has ever produced.
If it wasn't for one man, the Royal Rumble would never have existed. WWE legend Pat Patterson introduced the idea of the Royal Rumble match to Vince McMahon in 1987.
When Patterson came up with the idea of the Royal Rumble, McMahon absolutely hated it. He ridiculed it and shot it down as a stupid idea. But a few months later, NBC needed a WWF special to run on the USA Network. McMahon sarcastically suggested that Patterson tell NBC executives about his “stupid idea”.
Naturally, NBC loved it. Network executives thought fans would respond well to the idea. So the first-ever Royal Rumble match took place on a January USA Network special event, and it became a PPV the following year.
#2 WWE SmackDown was supposed to be a women's wrestling show
In 1999, WWE was considering creating a Thursday night show to compete against WCW’s Thunder program. After several meetings, they decided to create SmackDown.
It is not common knowledge, but in 1999, when WWE debuted SmackDown, there had been talks of it being a show that would exclusively showcase women's wrestlers. At the time, WWE had seen the value in female performers such as Chyna and Sable. The following year, Trish Stratus and Lita both debuted for the company as well.
Sable especially had a substantial number of fans, and it kept rising. She also coined the phrase ‘diva’ to describe herself and, it was soon co-opted into a catchphrase for all of the WWE's female performers.
It is not clear how close WWE came to making SmackDown a "Divas" show but, it definitely makes one wonder how successful Divas-only brand could have been. It's also fair to wonder how this show would have impacted the product of WWE RAW.
#1 The Undertaker and Sting had a match outside WWE
The big WWE WrestleMania match which everybody wanted to see but never got was Sting vs. The Undertaker. Though these two legends didn't compete against each other at The Grandest Stage Of Them All, it doesn't mean that they never faced off in a ring.
The Undertaker or, more precisely, "Mean" Mark Callous, had a match with Sting years before "The Phenom" was born. The match took place in September 1990, shortly before Callous jumped ship to WWE and was handed the gimmick that would make him an icon.
The advertised match was Sting vs. Windham for the NWA title, but Mark Callous wrestled Sting instead. The match surprisingly was lackluster, and it wasn't televised. In the end, Callous lost the match. Shortly thereafter, Callous moved on to a new chapter in his career, and the rest is history.
It is extremely disappointing that fans never got to see a match between these two legends when they were in their prime.
