10 Times Major SummerSlam Plans Changed

3. Justin Bieber Wrestles at SummerSlam 2013

There was a period where it seemed like Justin Bieber would get involved with WWE at some point. There were rumours that he was going to be the guest host of WrestleMania XXVII in 2011, but that never happened. Then, plans emerged for the pop sensation to actually wrestle at SummerSlam in 2013.

The match would have seen Bieber team with John Cena and The Big Show to take on the Wyatt Family. The babyface team would have won and Cena would have given Bieber an Attitude Adjustment to send adults home happy. This would have caused major shifts in the card we ended up seeing as Cena wouldn’t have faced Daniel Bryan in the main event.

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2. Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. McMahon – SummerSlam 2002

One of the changes with the most long-term implications is this one here. Shawn Michaels’ run in the 2000s was one of the highlights of the Ruthless Aggression era but would it have happened if plans didn’t change? Everyone knows that Michaels returned at SummerSlam 2002 to defeat Triple H. However, Michaels was originally going to return to face Mr. McMahon rather than Triple H.

Michaels had obvious self-doubt after not wrestling for almost five years and wanted to face McMahon. The slower, weapons-centric match would allow Michaels to control the pace of the match but that is not what happened. McMahon turned the match down and instead we got the match with Triple H that was better than the McMahon match would have ever been anyway.

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1. Daniel Bryan vs. Charlie Sheen – SummerSlam 2012

Doesn’t get much weirder than this one. At Raw 1000, actor Charlie Sheen served as Social Media Ambassador for the event, which really involved him popping in on Skype throughout the show as he had deleted his Twitter before the show. During the show, Daniel Bryan’s wedding with AJ Lee went awry and Bryan blew a gasket. This led to Sheen making fun of Bryan and Bryan was having none of it.

Sheen had a show at the time called Anger Management and in what undoubtedly a coincidence, Bryan was forced to attend anger management classes himself. The plan was for this to build to an actual match between Bryan and Sheen at SummerSlam 2012 but that never came to pass. Instead, Sheen was dropped from the story and WWE continued the anger management angle with Bryan playing opposite to Kane, leading to the eventual creation of Team Hell No.

Were there any SummerSlam changes that we missed? Let us know on Twitter!

• Daniel Bryan
• shawn michaels
• SummerSlam
• wwe

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