2017 is the tenth anniversary of the cult classic MTV series Wrestling Society X, a spiritual forefather to Lucha Underground and the launchpad for several modern-day pro wrestling superstars (like Seth Rollins!). You’re likely to see a lot of articles and remembrances this year. Heck, maybe even from this very site.
Paste Magazine interviewed one of the co-creators of Wrestling Society X, Kevin Kleinrock, and he spilled the beans on a few wrestlers he was either dying to have on the show or tried to get on the show before the production team ran into visa issues. The sad part of all of this is we could have maybe had El Generico in a piranha tank match or something in a hypothetical season two. Talk about a peligro abeja!
We had tried to get the then “El Generico,” Sami Zayn, in at the last minute for season one, but because this was MTV and everything had to be by the book with visas, we couldn’t pull off his visa in time. Actually, Matt Cross, who ended up teaming with Teddy Hart, was literally a “24 hours before we shot episode two” replacement. It was supposed to be Pac from England, now known as Neville in WWE. We had hired him, paid for a work visa, and literally there was like a one day hiccup between him being able to get to the consulate and get his visa and get on a plane to come and shoot the series. So we had to replace him at the last minute with Matt Cross. I was going to be bringing in the team of Nigel McGuinness and Fergal Devitt, now known as Finn Bálor, to be managed by Prince Nana as a tag team. A lot of the guys that had been working at the New Japan Dojo in Los Angeles with David Marquez and Bryan Danielson and there were guys that I had my eye on that we were potentially going to be working in the following season.
A Fergal Devitt/Nigel McGuinness tag team! Well, I guess they’ll end up teaming together in WWE at some point … in a way.
The entire article is long and loving and takes a look at pretty much the entire WSX journey from beginning to end, so head on over to Paste to check it out.
