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Brian Damage
The ‘If Factor’ are a series of articles that takes a look at real scenarios in pro wrestling that at one point or another were suggested, planned, considered…but did not get the green light to continue. What would the landscape of professional wrestling look like if these ideas came to fruition?
The If: Fandango Wins The Intercontinental Championship
At Wrestlemania 29 in April of 2013, Fandango defeated ‘Y2J’ Chris Jericho in a startling upset. While that victory helped catapult Fandango’s WWE career…it was the night after Wrestlemania that really helped launch Fandango into a whole new stratosphere. It was on Monday Night Raw where the entire audience started humming and dancing to Fandango’s theme music and began the birth of “Fandangoing.” The at by those Raw fans caught on with other WWE fans across the country and suddenly…Fandango became a hot ticket for the company.
So hot, in June of that year, WWE decided to reward Fandango and the fans by booking the dancing wrestler in a triple threat match against the Miz and Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental title at the Payback pay per view. According to Fandango, the plan was to have him win the match and become the new IC champion. Of course, that never happened and in fact, Fandango was removed from the match entirely and his spot was replaced by Curtis Axel. Axel became the eventual winner and he won the Intercontinental title instead. As for Fandango, slowly but surely, his big push diminished and the entire ‘Fandangoing’ craze cooled off.
So what exactly happened? Fandango said that he was de-pushed by the company after they discovered that he suffered a concussion in a match against ‘The Great Khali’. It wasn’t the injury that took him out of the IC title match, but the fact that he didn’t alert WWE medical staff of the injury. After accidentally “outing himself” to management by talking about his concussion…he was suddenly removed and replaced from the pay per view match and subsequently punished by management. What if Fandango was honest and reported his concussion and was awarded the Intercontinental title? Would Fandango become a bigger star for WWE? Would he still be with the company to this day?
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