Scrapped women’s/divas storylines. A thread.

1. Stacy Keibler shocked the world in late 2000 announcing that she was pregnant also declaring that her on-screen boyfriend David Flair wasn’t the father of the baby. 1/3

The plan was for Ric Flair to be revealed as the father of Stacy's child, after fooling around with her behind his son’s back, presumably leading to a feud between him and David. 2/3

The storyline was scrapped and after a long absence, Stacy made a passing remark about making up the pregnancy for attention and quickly moved on to an angle with Shawn Stasiak. 3/3

2. During an interview, Chyna stated that there was a plan for her to win the WWE Champion. Playboy wanted her to pose for them and Vince told her to make a decision: winning the title or being on the cover of Playboy, but she chose Playboy and the plans were scrapped.

3. Vince Russo pitched an incest angle for David Flair and Stacy Keibler to play up their real-life romance. During their on-screen wedding day, David Flair would have discovered that Stacy was Ric’s child and her half-sister. Luckily this idea was scrapped.

4. There were rumors that if Lita wasn't injured, there would've been a stipulation match between her & Trish at Wrestlemania 21 with the Women’s Championship on the line, supposedly a Ladder Match. This was scrapped because Lita got injured in late 2004.

5. According to a rumor I read hours ago, Dawn Marie pitched a storyline where she was supposed to steal the Women’s title from Trish, bringing it to SD and leading to a 6Pack Challenge at Mania 21 with the title on the line between her, Trish, Molly, Victoria, Jackie and Torrie.

6. Vince wanted to write Stephanie being pregnant into a storyline. He proposed her an incest angle where he would have claimed on screen that he was the father of Stephanie's child. Stephanie was repulsed and she turned the storyline down.

7. Melina was seen seducing Batista in the Smackdown locker room in 2007, only to turn around and accuse him of “forcing himself” on her. The proposed ending for the angle was for it to be revealed that Melina was actually a MAN. 1/2

Stephanie McMahon, the head writer, wisely turned this down, fearing such an angle would have wrecked Melina's career. 2/2

8. Maria Kanellis pitched the idea of having a doppelgänger, playing two characters in the same time: her dizzy persona and a darker, aggressive version of her. 1/3

Then she should have dated a wrestler wrestler who, inexplicably, wouldn't realize her personas were one in the same. This should have been culminated in her throwing a spray can into a mirror merging both personalities and leading to a new heel version of her. 2/3

This was supposed to push her as the top heel of the women’s division with Maria winning the title, but the creative team never considered this idea because it was considered too convoluted. 3/3

9. Paige, Summer Rae and former developmental talent Anya were supposed to be the female version of the Shield, who were to dish out 'justice'. Anya got injured and then released, the trio didn’t convince management so the storyline never saw the light.

10. Alexa Bliss was initially supposed to run with a 'sassy southerner' gimmick becoming Scott Dawson’s manager. Dawson and Bliss were supposed to be the new version of the southern couple that Jamie Noble and Nidia had portrayed in 2003. Storyline got scrapped (thankfully).

11. Angel Williams (Angelina Love) was scheduled to debut in WWE in May 2007 after years spent in OVW. Weeks before her debut she had some issues with her visa so WWE fired her.

12. WWE had plans for Summer Rae to become the new General Manager for 205 Live but she wasn’t given the role because of height since she would have made the Cruiserweights look even smaller than they are by comparison.

13. Back in 2017, Lana was supposed to debut with the gimmick of a new sexy femme fatale. She even debuted her gimmick in some NXT house shows where she danced with a chair as a prop but that was considered to hot for a family-friendly audience so they toned down the gimmick.

14. Alexa Bliss was meant to replace Baron Corbin as the the new RAW General Manager but the idea was canned due to the General Manager position becoming obsolete with the McMahons‘s new era.

15. Mandy was scheduled to win the F4W Match to determine Asuka’s challenger for the title at WrestleMania 35. Another idea pitched was the title being up for grabs in the WM Women’s Battle Royal, but both idea were scrapped in order to make the ME of WrestleMania even stronger.

16. Alicia Fox was supposed to be pushed more in late 2011 but everything ended because Beth got injured during their match. Her ‘push’ was over before it even began.

17. WWE had originally intended to launch the WWE Divas Championship in 2007 after re-acquiring Torrie Wilson during the WWE Draft. It seemed that Torrie was in line to be the very first Divas Champion. 1/2

During an interview with Jim Ross she said she didn't know if the rumors were true and she also stated as following:

"I was there for a really long time. It would have been nice to have been the Diva's champion at least once." 2/2

18. After Torrie Wilson agreed to compete at Evolution, she pitched the match that she wanted to be featured in. The match should have featured Wilson in a tag team match with former WWE Diva’s Champion Michelle McCool against The IIconics, Billie Kay & Peyton Royce. 1/2

The match was booked and Torrie was ready to train in Orlando but then executives decided they didn’t want it to happen so the match was scrapped and the four girls were booked in a Battle Royal. 2/2

19. In 2007, Torrie Wilson was attacked by Krissy Vaine. Krissy was offered a storyline where she she was supposed to attack Torrie claiming to be her youngest sister: the feud would have led Krissy and Torrie to feud for a long time and at the introduction of the Divas title.1/2

Everything was scrapped after Krissy Vaine asked for her release due to family health issues and the attack was never referenced again.

20. Goldust pitched the idea of having Terri Runnels coming back as Marlena for the 25th anniversary of RAW and since she was going to be there he asked Vince to let her walking with him to the ring as his manager for his scheduled match against Enzo Amore. 1/2

Terri loved the idea but Vince didn’t want that to happen because he prefered Terri having her own spotlight that night. Terri said she was disappointed with how the female legends were presented because she felt that there was room for more of them to be used in other ways. 2/2

21. In 2012, AJ Lee was the mainstay of the Divas Division. An idea pitched by Kevin Eck, ex member of the WWE Creative Team, was to send AJ to the mental asylum and write her off from WWE TV. She would have met another crazy guy, Dean Ambrose, and then come back with him. 1/2

This would have marked the debut of Dean and they were supposed to get a big push heading them straight into the title picture. Vince McMahon rejected the idea after hearing it because he was rather interested in putting AJ on another role and hence she became the new RAW GM. 2/2

22. Luna Vachon was scheduled to win the WWF Women's Championship at least in three different occasions but that never happened. Alundra Blayze wanted to relinquish her title to Luna in her hometown and pitched the idea to creatives but they didn't allow her to drop the belt 1/3

Alundra told Luna that she wouldn't have kicked out of a pin, forcing WWF to accept the title change but the referee spotted the danger and refused to count. The first time she was scheduled to win the title, she was caught smoking by fans so creatives changed their plans. 2/3

The other two times management had plans for her to win the title, Sable conveniently "forgot" to bring the belt to the shows. This led to physical altercations between Sable and Luna on more than one occasion, which eventually caused Luna's dismissal in early 2000. 3/3

23. In 2004, there were rumors of Stacy Keibler becoming the new Women's Champion. She was set to win the title during the "Fulfill Your Fantasy Battle Royal Match", which is why Molly Holly jobbed to her several times since they wanted to give her some in-ring credibility. 1/2

Stacy Keibler declined the belt on the last minute because she felt she didn't really earn it and she didn't want to disrespect the real female wrestlers. She was scheduled to win the belt in other occasions but she always turned it down. 2/2

24. In 1996, Aja Kong was set to challenge Alundra Blayze for her WWF Women's Championship at the Royal Rumble PPV and she was scheduled to win. Before their match at the PPV, however, Blayze was released and the bout never happened.

25. Stephanie McMahon asked for a sexy segment involving Trish and Torrie on SmackDown in early 2002: the segment should have seen Trish crowling on Torrie, kissing her on the lips. Trish refused to do that cuz it was sensless for her and this segment didn't happen. 1/2

In a book, Trish said that she had nothing do with Torrie back then so she didn't think her character would have kissed her. Stacy ended up kissing Torrie and probably as a punishment Trish surprisely lost the title to Jazz the following week. 2/2

26. Christy Hemme replaced an injured Lita in the plans for Wrestlemania 21, setting up a match with Trish Stratus. The match should have crowned a new champion in the women's division but it ended up going Trish's way as WWE wasn't convinced of Christy’s in-ring skills

27. Sable was scheduled to become the love interest of The Undertaker. They were meant to be the new power couple, also starting showing the human side of Taker. Undertaker’s wife at the time was uncomfortable with that so the idea was scrapped.

28. WWE taped a SmackDown episode on the 6th of December 2011 where following another loss, Kaitlyn flipped on AJ Lee, beat her up and joined forces with Natalya and Beth Phoenix turning heel. The segment was never shown on TV and they moved on.

29. It was rumored that WWE was about to make Eva Marie champion. WWE was preparing her belt and they ordered side plates bearing her name when they first ordered a new women's belt. She and WWE parted aways in August and Alexa Bliss stepped into the role of SD’s leading woman.

30. Carmella was supposed to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 33, just for losing it two days later to Naomi. The idea was scrapped hours before the match and Naomi won the title at WrestleMania and in her hometown.

31. Bayley and Sasha Banks were scheduled to face each other at WrestleMania 34 but creative team already had ideas of launching the Women’s Tag Titles so they didn’t want one of them to turn on the other. The match was scrapped and they both ended up in the Mania Battle Royal.

32. Lana was scheduled to make her official in-ring debut at WWE Night of Champion 2015 where she and Dolph Ziggler should have faced Rusev & Summer Rae in a Mixed Tag Team Match but in 9/7 Lana suffered a wrist injury while training in the ring and then nothing happened.

33. Initial idea for Kristal Marshall was for her and Vickie Guerrero to step as the new SmackDown General Managers, after Kristal seduced Teddy Long at the command of Edge so he could gain revenge for the stripping of his World title. 1/3

Then Kristal was slated to take up the Alicia Fox’s role in a Edge storyline who would have ended up with Edge cheating on Vickie with her and Kristal becoming Edge’s manager. She was supposed to be a lot like Lita was when she was with Edge. 2/3

The company took the refusal the wrong way as in their eyes this was a great opportunity. She then rubbed people up the wrong way by pushing to be moved to RAW with her partner Lashley, thus leading to her release. 3/3

34. The storyline who led to the legendary feud between Trish Stratus and Mickie James almost didn’t happen. That’s because Mickie pitched this storyline with Lita involved since she knew her personally but Trish was RAW biggest star so James ended up working with Trish.

35. Back in 2015 there were talk of pairing former NXT Diva Zahra Schreiber with Baron Corbin because they were both covered in tattoos. The idea was scrapped and she debuted in NXT LE as Solomon Crowe’s sister but she was released because of offensive remarks she made.

36. Summer Rae was supposed to win the Divas Championship in the “Vickie Guerrero Invitational” at WrestleMania 30. WWE had plans for Paige to debut the following day at RAW and they wanted to recreate their NXT feud in the MR. The idea was scrapped cuz of AJ Lee’s popularity.

37. Kharma was scheduled to become a very important player in the Divas Division back in 2011. One rumor wanted her to win the Divas Championship and feud with Beth Phoenix who would have been the first one to pin her, but everything about Kharma was and is still a mistery. 1/4

Former WWE Divas Kelly Kelly, during an interview with DS Shin of RTB, stated that she didn’t know why Kharma would have always left her alone in the ring, usually just playing mind games with her after attacking the other Divas. 2/4

During another interview with Chris Van Vliet, Kelly Kelly stated that maybe WWE wanted to pair them as a Tag Team but she isn’t sure of it because Kharma’s storyline was a big secret. 3/4

Kharma made her return in WWE at the Royal Rumble ‘12 and according to her that was a way to set up a new revised long-term program with the company but she was still suffering physically and mentally from the loss of her baby, everything was scrapped and she was released.

38. Paige pitched the idea of her managing Ronda Rousey , kinda like the Paul Heyman-Brock Lesnar duo. Creative team didn’t like the idea, so she asked to manage Asuka but the idea was scrapped and she ended up being the manager of Kabuki Warriors.

39. In February 2019, Dana Brooke costed her and Natalya the opportunity to compete for the Women's Tag Team Championships at Elimination Chamber. Tensions between the two continued to grow and they were scheduled to clash in a episode of RAW. 1/2

The match never took place and Dana didn't wind up facing the Nattie. It was revelead that while WWE did indeed intend on holding the match, it was cut because they didn't think it would have fitted well into the go home show ahead of Elimination Chamber 2/2

40. In 2017, Triple H pitched the idea of Asuka winning the Women’s Royal Rumble and Paige the Women’s Elimination Chamber Match, thus defeating Alexa Bliss and becoming the new RAW Women’s Champion. Paige vs Asuka for the RAW Women’s Champion was the plan for WrestleMania 34 1/2

However, Vince wanted Alexa to retain the title at least until WrestleMania. Paige got injured and she had to retire so the plans were scrapped, Asuka faced Charlotte Flair and Nia became the challenger for the RAW Women’s Championship. 2/2

41. WWE’s original and longterm plan for the match was for Lynch to win the Raw Women’s Championship and then for her, Rousey and Flair to emotionally embrace in the middle of the ring. 1/3

Stephanie McMahon should have then came out with the entire women’s division and they would give all three competitors a round of applause to end WrestleMania 35 on a heartwarming note. 2/3

However, this idea was scrapped because it was sensless for Becky, Charlotte and Ronda hugging each other after a storyline revolving around hating each others. 3/3

42. During the Bellas podcast, Nikki Bella confirmed that she and Brie were scheduled to come back the SmackDown after WrestleMania 35 to feud with the IIconics for the Tag Titles. 1/2

They even had their gears ready, however she had this weird feeling about her neck so she decided to see her surgeon before coming back. He found out that she had a brain cyst and this caused her to retire permanently from in-ring action and everything was scrapped. 2/2

43. According to Casey Michael of SCSiren, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were originally slated to be part of the Women's Tag Team Championship Match at WrestleMania 35. But then WWE brought back HOF Beth Phoenix and she and Nattie took their places in the match. 1/2

This was the scheduled plan before creative pitched a possible Triple Threat Match between Mandy, Sonya and Asuka for the SD Women's Championship WrestleMania and then a rematch from Fastlane between Mandy and Asuka. 2/2

44. There were rumors that Paige, Summer Rae and Emma were supposed to be the original Absolution lineup. The original plan was for Asuka to take the title off Alexa and Paige was supposed to win the Rumble and then beat Asuka’s streak at WrestleMania. 1/3

This was why Emma had a mini-feud with Asuka, this would have led to Paige and Summer’s return. Allegedly, Vince has never been too keen on Emma and he really liked Mandy Rose so he swapped the two. 2/3

They plans was to call-up Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville (since they had a connection with Paige after Tough Enough) after Survivor Series in order to add women to the roster and give Paige two sidekicks. Emma and Summer Rae were released at the end of October.

45. The whole WM 24’s Bunnymania Tag Team Match ideas went from Candice Michelle and Maria, to Ashley and Maria, then back to Candice Michelle and Maria again up until a week before WrestleMania when Candice injured herself and Ashley was brought in again. 2/2

46. Ashley and Melina were supposed to rekindle their feud on RAW in 2008, with the two having a match after Ashley’s return, but Melina cut a promo saying that the match wasn’t going to happen after Ashley injured herself. Everything was scrapped.

47. Maxine pitched a storyline of her seducing Teddy Long and then taking over as the new SD GM but the writers told her they weren’t into the idea. She should have portrayed a a sexy dominatrix-esque character with black hair, wearing leather and lace... S1/2

But then she saw Aksana backstage with her hair dyed black and with cut bangs and realised that they took the storyline she came up with but gave it to Aksana. 2/2

48. In her book AJ Lee stated that the original plan for her triangle storyline was for Bryan to beat Punk for the title and her and Bryan becoming a heel power couple. This changed after the writers decided to prolong the angle.

49. In 2010, while AJ Lee was being tested as a host during a house show, her husband Punk broke a television backstage because the Divas match of that night was terrible. This resulted in Fit Finlay giving AJ a "tryout" against Layla the following night, where she did great. 1/2

As a result, she was going to debut on SmackDown a week later alongside Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero in a storyline that would divide them. That was written out of the show at the last minute, and the story was eventually given to Kaitlyn for NXT months later instead. 2/2

50. According to journalist Tom Colohue, one of his sources stated that Naomi winning against The IIconics two weeks in a row after WrestleMania was supposed to lead her to a push: the idea was for Naomi and a partner to challenge the IIconics for the Tag Tirles first. 1/2

Ember Moon and Bayley were ideas before the Shake-Up but Dana Brooke was the name that had been making the rounds the most as a potential partner for Naomi. Everything was scrapped when WWE decided to not focus on the Women’s Tag Titles anymore. 2/2

51. Former OVW Diva, Nikita Fink, was originally booked to debut on SmackDown several times but the plans always changed. One of the ideas was for Nikita to be revealed as Al Wilson’s daughter making her feud against Dawn Marie and her sister Torrie over Al’s inheritance. 1/2

The storyline was scrapped. Then, another of the original ideas for her debut was for Nikita to play Vince McMahon’s illegitimate child but her leg got injured and she stayed out of actions for two months. She’ll later be fired due to her lack of time spent training in-ring. 2/2

52. The original idea for Al Wilson’s funeral was different: Torrie was supposed to tell him she was sorry for not accepting Dawn while Al should have risen from the coffin telling Torrie she was a horrible daughter and then leaving the funeral just to get hit by a bus.

53. Maryse’s first gimmick was supposed to see her coming out as a lesbian. Plans were arranged for her to exploit her lesbian gimmick more deeper by stalking and kissing her opponents. The gimmick was cancelled after creatives though it was too far for a friendly show.

54. Shantelle Taylor (Taylor Wilde in TNA) was scheduled to debut in WWE as a masked cruiserweight named San-Eye only to reveal she was a woman in disguise. This is why she used to wrestle SmackDown/ECW dark matches against Jamie Noble. 1/2

Everything was scrapped once Shantelle was released in August 2007. She then retired until TNA contacted her. 2/2

55. As revealed by Kevin Eck, once Cody Rhodes had started getting quite the response for his facial fluff, a budding romance between Rhodes and Kaitlyn was pitched: this would have eventually lead to Kaitlyn turning on Cody and siding with Sandow due to his superior beard. 1/2

The supposed scenario was for Sandow to find his own gf and feud against Cody & Kaitlyn in mixed tag matches. But McMahon wasn't hot on the idea since he couldn't understand why Cody would even look at someone like Kaitlyn when other hot girls were running around in WWE.

56. Another Kevin Eck's idea was to have Brandi Rhodes be the one who turned Cody into a mysterious, out-there Stardust. She would do this by convincing him that Goldust was hogging the spotlight and using Cody to remain relevant. Brandi would then become a ‘14 version of Marlena

57. SmackDown was originally supposed to be an all women's show.
According to Bruce Prichard, WWE initially thought about making the show an all-female affair lead by Chyna, Stephanie, Jacqueline, Ivory, Debra, Miss Kitty and with Moolah and Mae Young as special attractions. 1/2

Sadly, there wasn't enough talent around at the time to make it happen especially since after Sable left the company. WWE didn't have the depth to do it on a consistent basis week after week, therefore the plan was scrapped, but they definitely discussed that many times. 2/2

58. Joy Giovanni was slated to become Big Show’s new manager.
The story was that Show would always run to the rescue Joy whenever she was in trouble with dastardly heels. 1/2

According to Joy, she was linked with Show because he had never had an on-screen girlfriend but had “always wanted one”, so WWE pleased him.
But the story was dropped shortly thereafter since Joy Giovanni was released from her contract in July because of budget cuts.

59. WWE decided to tease a relationship between Eddie Guerrero and Lita in the spring of 2001. Eddie started courting Lita and storyline was going to see Eddie try to steal Lita away from boyfriend Matt Hardy, with Jeff and Lita caught in the middle. 1/2

Rumour was that the Eddie/Lita saga was going to be a main fixture of WWF television over the summer but Eddie regrettably showed up to a Raw taping in no condition to perform. The angle was scrapped and Eddie was sent off to rehab. 2/2

60. Layla was reportedly in line fot a big babyface push after WrestleMania 28. The speculation was that Layla, who had been cleared to return, would have ended up siding with Ryder for a feud with Eve Torres. 1/2

One of the creative team’s ideas to start that push was to bring her back as Ryder’s love interest and have her triumph over Eve, who would have been paired with a male superstar for a series of Mixed Tag Team Matches.
Kane was speculated to be at Eve’s side.

61. The original idea for Sable and Torrie’s bikini contest was to make Torrie win in the same way Sable won years before against Jacqueline. Management wanted her to paint her boobs like Sable previously did, but Torrie was opposed to that and everything was scrapped.

62. At the end of 2003, Torrie with Sable, Nidia and Dawn Marie pitched the idea of bringing over a "Divas" Title to the SmackDown! brand, but they were shot down and allegedly punished when complaining about only having bikini contests to do.

63. Trish Stratus, Molly Holly and Gail Kim were meant to become WWE's version of the 2004 film Mean Girls, as we saw when they welcomed Christy Hemme to Raw, in a “Mean Girl' style.
Gail Kim was released, thus the storyline and the stable got dropped.

64. In 2001, there were plans for Trish Stratus and Jeff Hardy to become WWE's new couple and tag team and they were slated to feud with Matt Hardy & Lita, but Trish suffered an ankle injury that put her on the shelf for months.

65. As confirmed by Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm in “100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die”, Chyna was supposed to put over Lita, the new up-and-coming female superstar at Judgment Day ‘01 since she already decided to leave WWE after the match. 1/2

Apparently, the plan was for Eddie Guerrero to help Lita win the title and write Chyna off TV, but Chyna refused to drop the title as she didn't want to lose it to a woman half her size when she was known to defeat men like Triple H and Steve Austin before. 2/2