Former WWE Superstar Elias, who now goes by Elijah, recently spoke about his memorable WrestleMania moment with John Cena in 2019 and where he may end up wrestling next. Elias was one of the wrestlers whose fans were surprised by how good he is in the ring. While his “Walk With Elias” and “Drifters” characters were gimmick-heavy, he also impressed fans with his solid in-ring work.
WWE started to see fans getting behind him and how good he is. They started giving him opportunities like wrestling Roman Reigns, but his biggest moment has to be his segment with John Cena at WrestleMania 35.
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Elias was recently a guest on For The Love of Wrestling podcast and revealed John Cena interrupting his musical performance was supposed to become a match. He also revealed he had been dropping hints because he knew about the proposed match with Cena for months prior. He stated the following:
“That was actually originally supposed to be a match, which I was really excited about. But due to some things and movies and whatever going on it turned into this ‘Doctor of Thuganomics’ deal. Which is so cool. To have his original character come out there, New York, 80,000 people whatever it was … To be able to say you did WrestleMania with John Cena, it’s really cool man.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
Elias Gets Interrupted by John Cena
Elias was out performing in front of his adoring fans. Then Cena rudely interrupted him in his old Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick. As if interrupting Elias wasn’t rude enough, Cena begins to insult him. The final insult was when Cena delivered an Attitude Adjustment and laid Elias out in the middle of the ring.
That sounds like a good start to a feud or at the very least a match. However, that match unfortunately never came to fruition. That was not the first time a proposed feud or match with Elias and a legend never happened. Elias revealed that his planned match with Cena was first brought to him months prior. The match started to get harder and harder to put together because Cena’s schedule was really busy. Elias continued to do his segments and dropped little hints leading up to the match, but it ultimately fell through.
The Raw after WrestleMania Elias was attacked by The Undertaker. Elias revealed that moment was supposed to lead to a match with Undertaker at Super ShowDown a few months after his canceled WrestleMania match. WWE decided again to change things up and Undertaker’s new opponent would be Goldberg. Elias continued:
“We were supposed to have a match in Saudi Arabia after that big moment on Monday Night Raw right there. But through other things, things happen, and it ends up being Goldberg. I never got to have that match, but I would have loved to really capitalize on that moment and put Elias in a whole other spectrum of star power so to speak, being in there with Undertaker.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
Elias also revealed that at the previous WrestleMania, he was supposed to have a match with Cena too, but it was nixed for a segment with Cena and Undertaker. He revealed that for whatever reason those three men seemed to be intertwined the last few years of Elias’ career.
In September 2023, the former WWE Superstar was released from his WWE contract. It shocked and upset a lot of fans. He had become popular and it looked like WWE would be pushing him hard at any moment. However, Elias is not done with wrestling. Last month, he appeared at Pro Wrestling Revolver as Elijah. He recently took on “Speedball” Mike Bailey in a losing effort.
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Elias hasn’t decided where he wants to wrestle in the future. He has decided to keep his options open. The one place he revealed has really interested him is to wrestle for NJPW. He stated the following on the subject:
“From a personal standpoint, I think it would be cool to go to Japan and work for New Japan, just to show something that people might have not expected. They might associate me in a certain way, and I would love to just kind of blow that expectation away.” He revealed that he wants to blow people’s minds if he goes to AEW or TNA too.
“I have plenty of ideas about how to evolve my character or take it to the next step, and I feel like you need a TV audience in order to show that. We’ll have to see what opportunities come my way and which way we go, but all three of them are very appealing.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transition
NJPW is down a few stars now that Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay are in AEW. Also, Tama Tonga is rumored to be on his way to WWE. NJPW has some spots to fill, and Elias is a very good option.
Did you think Elias was on the cusp of getting a huge push? Would you have liked to have seen Elias wrestle John Cena at WrestleMania? What about Undertaker? Where would you like to see Elias end up? Do you think NJPW is the best place for him? Do you think AEW would use him well or would TNA be the better option? Let us know on social media who out there would be your dream match for Elias to wrestle.
SOURCE: Wrestling Inc., For The Love of Wrestling, Wrestling Inc.
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