One of my favorite things about season one of Netflix’s WWE Unreal was the stuff we saw on the whiteboard in the writer’s room. Whether it was out-there ideas we never saw, or how vastly different early WrestleMania 41 plans
were from the cards we eventually got in Las Vegas last April — the streamer’s documentary series about how WWE television gets put together made me realize that maybe my fantasy booking isn’t that bad after all.Episode four of the second season gives us a chance to see what
Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque and team had cooked up early in their planning for last year’s SummerSlam. Only two matches ended up taking place as it was originally written up:
- WWE Championship: John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes
- World Heavyweight Championship: CM Punk vs. Gunther
- Women’s World Championship match: IYO SKY vs. Naomi
- Women’s Intercontinental Championship: Bayley vs. Becky Lynch
- WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: The Bella Twins vs. Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez
- Roman Reigns vs. Bron Breakker
- Sami Zayn vs. Seth Rollins (w/ Bronson Reed)
- Rhea Ripley vs. Asuka
- Jey Uso vs. Rusev
- Finn Balor (The Demon) vs. Dominik Mysterio
- Trish Stratus vs. TBD
And here are the cards we ended up getting, which didn’t have any Stratus-es or Demons on it:
- WWE Championship: John Cena (c) vs. Cody Rhodes
- World Heavyweight Championship: Gunther (c) vs. CM Punk
- Women’s Championship: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Jade Cargill
- Women’s Tag Team Championship: Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez (c) vs. Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss
- Men’s Intercontinental Championship: Dominik Mysterio (c) vs. AJ Styles
- Men’s United States Championship: Solo Sikoa (c) vs. Jacob Fatu
- Women’s Intercontinental Championship: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Lyra Valkyria
- Women’s World Championship: Naomi (c) vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Iyo Sky
- Roman Reigns & Jey Uso vs. Bron Breakker & Bronson Reed
- Jelly Roll & Randy Orton vs. Logan Paul & Drew McIntyre
- Sami Zayn vs. Karrion Kross
Some changes were caused by things out of WWE’s control, like Liv Morgan’s injury. Others, like deciding to run a fake injury angle with Seth Rollins after his Money in the Bank win so he could cash in after the Punk/Gunther match, were Triple H and team choosing a different creative path.
Were they always going to, and Unreal’s whiteboard is part of the work? Which SummerSlam line-up do you prefer?
Sound off in the comments below, Cagesiders.
