10 Times Real Life Events Caused Wrestling Shows To Change

3. Raw and Vengeance and the Death of Chris Benoit

Much like Guerrero’s death, the death of Chris Benoit had both an immediate impact and a long-term one. The Vengeance pay per view was the first show affected by Benoit’s death. He was originally supposed to win the ECW Championship in a match with CM Punk but he was replaced by Johnny Nitro when he did not show up to the show.

News of Benoit’s death broke on June 25, 2007, and that night’s Raw show was replaced with a tribute show. At the time, the circumstances of his death were not apparent. The Vince McMahon death angle was also called off as McMahon returned to Raw one week after his apparent demise.

The following episodes of ECW and SmackDown were both affected by the news as angles and heel wins were put on the back burner for the time being.

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2. Mr. McMahon’s Son and the 2007 Steroid Scandal

Around the same time as the Benoit tragedy, Mr. McMahon had revealed he had an illegitimate son. It has been confirmed by multiple sources that the original plan for the story was for Mr. Kennedy to be Vince’s son. The angle would have seen Kennedy win the WWE Championship and be the top heel of Raw.

Those plans never came to pass. Kennedy was named as one of eleven WWE wrestlers involved in a steroid scandal in September and the angle took a dramatic turn. Instead of Kennedy being pushed to be a top heel, it was Hornswoggle who was revealed to be Vince’s son. You can imagine the storyline that followed was very different.

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1. SmackDown and Unforgiven and the Tragedy of 9/11

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were a devastating moment in American history. WWE did their best to respond positively to the horrible tragedy. The September 13 episode of SmackDown was broadcast live and was the first public gathering of its size since the attack. Naturally, the show was loaded with patriotism.

The changes continued over onto the Unforgiven pay per view. Despite being in the midst of the Invasion angle, WWE made the decision to crown Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle as the WWE Champion. He did not hold the title for very long but the move was made to give the American people something to cheer about during the chaos.

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