O.J. Simpson Was Supposed To Wrestle For WWE At WrestleMania After His Acquittal Of Double Murder
With the news that O.J. Simpson is finally getting out of prison, a lot of news and rumors have been flying about the former NFL superstar. One example was when the NFL announced this week that the O.J. Simpson has an invitation to attend future ceremonies as a member of the Hall. While that seems controversial, some WWE rumors about O.J. Simpson and WrestleMania XII might even trump that.
Former WWE writer Kevin Eck wrote a recent article for Sporting News and revealed some very interesting things about both the WWE and WCW wanting to utilize O.J. Simpson back when he was acquitted in the criminal case for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
For people who weren’t around in 1995, the O.J. Simpson murder trial was one of the hottest news topics of the decade. People were glued to their televisions throughout the entire trial and the case actually split a large number of people down the line when it comes to those who believed Simpson was guilty and those who believed in his innocence.
With so much publicity, it made both the WWE and WCW believe that he was a good choice to try to bring in for an angle. As a former NFL superstar, O.J. Simpson was a great athlete and Eck wrote that the WWE was who made the first move.
The WWE wanted to bring in O.J. Simpson to actually work a match at WrestleMania XII in 1996. The match was to see Simpson battle Roedy Roddy Piper at the show, which took place less than six months following the acquittal.
However, while the WWE really wanted to bring in O.J. Simpson for the match – and Simpson was allegedly willing as well to make the payday – the backlash was immense when planning the angle. Roddy Piper was even willing to do the match, but the WWE decided that the negative backlash would cost them sponsors and they nixed the idea.
Instead, Rowdy Roddy Piper fought Goldust in the infamous Hollywood Backlot Brawl. Interestingly, there was a white Ford Bronco in the back lot of the match – maybe homage to the O.J. Simpson WWE match that never happened.
Kevin Eck also used to edit the WCW Magazine and mentioned that there was also an idea to bring in O.J. Simpson to WCW as well. It was 2000 and Vince Russo had left the WWE and took over creative in WCW. Eck said Russo wanted to pay Simpson millions of dollars to take a lie detector test on live WCW television.
The idea came when O.J. Simpson said that he would take the lie detector test to prove his innocence for $3 million. He said that the money could go to finally catch whoever the “real killer” was. Russo pushed hard but the WCW shot it down.
[Featured Image by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]
