What if John Cena and Batista hadn’t swapped brands in the 2005 WWE Draft?

#2 Kurt Angle vs. Batista

Kurt Angle was positioned to enter the title picture, whoever the champ was on Raw

Kurt Angle was an important rival for John Cena in the fall of 2006. Angle’s remarkable in ring talent, not to mention his established main event level credibility offered the young champion a stiff challenger, not to mention a ring general to pull the very best out of him from bell to bell.

There’s little question that Angle would have been in one world title picture or another coming out of SummerSlam 2006. The simplest line of logic to follow is that, if Batista had still been the champ on Raw, he would have had the Olympic gold medalist knocking on his door.

Angle and Batista never had a proper one-on-one rivalry, and so the pairing stands out as a narrowly missed dream match that was within WWE’s grasp.

As it stands, Batista moved to SmackDown and then got hurt, in a development that prompted Angle’s own move to the blue brand. Angle would ultimately leave the company before he and The Animal would clash.