10 Times WWE Rewrote Their Own History

Whether it’s a revise, a retcon or a full-on rewrite, World Wrestling Entertainment haven’t been shy about meddling with their own history.

There are various reasons for this – from saving face and avoiding legal issues to exaggerating accomplishments and progressing storylines – but it can be maddening for long-time fans who witnessed something happen one way, just for it to be retold through WWE’s own filter.

When looking for the WWE history book, perhaps you better check the ‘fiction’ section first.

These are 10 Times WWE Rewrote Their Own History.

10. Getting The 'F' Out

On May 6, 2002, WWE officially changed its name from the World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment.

Fans were well prepped for the switch of initials thanks to an effectively amusing ad campaign about the company getting the ‘F’ out.

Now, Vince McMahon would have you believe that the decision to switch from WWF to WWE was about emphasising the ‘entertainment’ aspect of his brand of sports entertainment while moving further away from that disgusting pro wrasslin’ nonsense.

In truth, WWE fought the change – necessitated after WWE breached an agreement with UK-based conservation group the World Wildlife Fund – every step of the way.

The panda people laid the SmackDown on Vince’s legal team in court, resulting in WWE being unable to use the ‘scratch’ logo that debuted in 1998, as well as the WWF letters in specified circumstances.

WWE attempted to spin the ruling in their favour with a frankly laughable press release, but anyone who had actually followed the saga knew that WWE were simply in the wrong and paid for their mistakes.

9. Kane's Burns

From the get-go, it was stressed by WWE that Kane wore a mask to hide burns he sustained to his face in a fire that The Undertaker had set in an attempt to burn down the family funeral home and murder his younger sibling.

This really added to the Big Red Machine’s aura and also really made fans want to see just how disfigured the ugly freak was under the hood.

We got occasional, inconclusive glimpses, before Kane lost a World Heavyweight Title vs. Mask match against Triple H on the June 23, 2003 episode of Raw. And then we got a load of smudged mascara and a skullet.

So, what happened here then? It’s entirely possible that WWE didn’t think ahead and plan for the possibility of Kane taking his mask off when they penned his elaborate backstory.

Scrambling for an explanation for the absence of scarred flesh, it was instead claimed that the burns the Devil’s Favourite Demon had suffered were merely ‘psychological’.

8. Hulk Hogan Slamming Andre The Giant

In the main event of WrestleMania III, the Irresistible Force met the Immovable Object when Hulk Hogan defended his WWE Title against Andre the Giant.

The Hulkster won the match, becoming the first person IN HISTORY to both slam and pin the seven-footer. At least that’s how WWE tells it.

The Hulkster himself will tell it that he slammed Andre as a shoot, brother, tearing every muscle in his back in the process and that the giant passed away just two days later, but that’s another lie for another time.

In actuality, Andre had been slammed multiple times by many different people. Harley Race, Kamala, Stan Hansen and even Hogan himself (among others) had slammed him in the past. And Hogan previously did it on a major WWE show, no less.

Now, Andre taking a slam wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence and most of these happened in other territories or overseas in Japan, but they did happen.

The same goes for the big man losing, even if he did have a healthy win percentage.

Hulk’s feat at ‘Mania 3 is impressive enough in itself, yet WWE feel the need to inflate it, along with the show’s highly disputed attendance figure.

7. Eddie Guerrero is Dominik Mysterio's biological father

Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero’s feud took a personal turn in the Summer of 2005, when Latino Heat revealed his big ‘secret’ and confessed that he was the biological father of Rey’s son Dominik.

As the story went, Guerrero sired a child while he and wife Vickie were on the outs. After Eddie proved unwilling to raise the boy himself, Mysterio and his wife Angie adopted him.

The soap opera twist led to a Ladder Match for the custody of Dominik at SummerSlam 2005, which was won by Rey. He may have won custody, but according to the storyline, Dominik was Eddie’s biological child.

Flash forward 15 years, Dom decided to get into the business himself and was paired with his actual biological father.

WWE dropped the pretence that Dominik was a Guerrero by blood, while playfully referencing and poking fun at his previous kayfabe lineage.

WWE obviously couldn’t perpetuate the falsehood following Eddie’s passing and weren’t going to meddle with a proper father-son team when Dominik stepped into the ring, but it was funny how such a major plot point was disregarded.

6. Goldberg's interference at No Way Out 2004

Speaking of Eddie, how about that time he beat Brock Lesnar in the main event of No Way Out 2004 to win the WWE Title?

What a moment it was, when Latino Heat countered the F5 with a DDT onto the title belt and hit the Frog Splash for the feel-good three count. All that after battling The Beast for 30 minutes with no help whatsoever.

Well, apart from the timely assist provided by Goldberg after the referee was bumped, but let’s not bring that little wrinkle up, shall we? Yes, even though WWE sneakily omit that part when celebrating Guerrero’s title triumph, it did happen.

Da’ Man had shown up earlier in the night and attacked The Next Big Thing, prior to being removed from the arena by security.

He must have managed to break free and sneak back in, because he came back later to Spear Lesnar while Brian Hebner was taking a nap.

To be fair, it was only a false finish and didn’t lead directly to the finish itself, but it’s pretty amusing how WWE scrubs it from the match’s recap.

5. The Monday Night Wars

They say that history is written by the victors and you don’t have to convince us twice after seeing how WWE likes to tell the tale of the Monday Night Wars.

If you listen to WWE’s version of their mid-to-late 90’s feud with WCW, you’ll hear of how Ted Turner bought all of the McMahon-made stars due to his limitless chequebook, how WCW played dirty by doing heinous things like revealing the results of WWE’s pre-taped shows live on air and how D-Generation X turned the tide by INVADING WCW WITH A TANK!

Honestly, the picture WWE paints is so distorted and one-sided, it’s beyond ridiculous. It wouldn’t be so bad, but their version of the so-called War is taken as read by fans who only really know of it because of WWE-produced media.

To them, the valiant mom-and-pop promotion managed to overcome the evil corporation due to their creativity, determination, superior storytelling and homegrown stars.

The reality is, of course, far, far different.

4. Kofi Kingston being from Jamaica

When Kofi Kingston burst onto the scene in 2008, much was made of his Jamaican heritage.

Pre-debut vignettes showed him on the beaches of his ‘homeland’, he had reggae-inflected entrance music, wore Jamaican flag colours on his gear and he was called KOFI KINGSTON and spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent.

At some point shortly before Bragging Rights 2009, Kofi simply dropped the accent and started being billed from his real home country of Ghana, West Africa.

Naturally, that cheeky DX chappie Triple H couldn’t just let it slide and called Kingston out about his disappearing accent during a promo. And that was that, to be honest. No explanation or reasoning for the change. Just a wink and a nod and a friendly crotch chop and time to move on.

Which was for the best, really, since the New Day member only did the Jamaican thing on the indies because Prince Nana was doing a Ghanaian Prince gimmick in Ring of Honor and he didn’t want to be accused of trying to copy him.

3. Chris Benoit

You cannot talk about WWE history without talking about Chris Benoit. The Rabid Wolverine was a major part of it between 2000 and 2007, though WWE have went to great lengths to erase him from their history ever since the Benoit family tragedy.

Faced with an unprecedented situation, the company decided to refrain from mentioning Benoit’s name going forward.

His name still appears in the record books, but Chris Benoit isn’t searchable on the Network and his name and likeness does not appear on WWE programming (wherever possible).

So when The Radicalz jumping from WCW to WWE gets brought up, it’s Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn who are shown.

When WrestleMania 20 is discussed, the big matches were Eddie’s WWE Title victory over Kurt Angle and The Undertaker’s return against Kane, not the Canadian Crippler’s World Heavyweight Title win in the main event.

Some may argue that Benoit’s career shouldn’t be overlooked but, given the circumstances, WWE really had no choice but to take the position they have in distancing themselves from him.

2. Edge and Christian

Were Edge and Christian supposed to be best friends or were they supposed to be brothers?

From Christian’s WWE debut it was said that he and his fellow Brood member were legit siblings, something that was continually parroted over the course of the next many years.

There were even some humorous skits where Captain Charisma was ghosted by their Grandma Edna, which was one of the reasons Christian ended up turning on the Rated-R Superstar in 2001.

Flash forward to the 2010 draft and Christian was giving an emotional speech, talking about how close the two were and how he remembered their first meeting in sixth grade…just like that, Edge and Christian were no longer battling brothers but best friends.

This is the actual truth of the matter, of course, as Jay Reso and Adam Copeland are not related by blood, but bonded by friendship and spandex and baby oil.

1. The Ultimate Warrior

In 2005, WWE released a hatchet-job DVD called The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior. In it, the former WWE Champion was roundly criticised and mocked by his former colleagues, then-current stars and even Vince McMahon himself.

Jim Hellwig was on the outs with the company at the time and wasn’t exactly making any friends with his outrageous, hate-filled actions and statements like cheering on Bobby Heenan’s cancer diagnosis.

Warrior would continue to be at odds with WWE until fences were finally mended in 2014. When Hellwig died just days after being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, the company quickly went to work in lionising the face-painted superstar, including green-lighting a new, much more flattering documentary and establishing the ‘Warrior Award’ in his honour.

In this new documentary – released just nine days after his passing – The Ultimate Warrior was portrayed as being a transcendent icon of the industry who had been perhaps ‘misunderstood’ by his peers.

The Self-Destruction DVD (as well as the resultant litigation) was briefly covered in the piece, but WWE swiftly buried the animosity and returned to a more positive tone.