Cesaro 2014
Welcome to Fantasy Booking, where the results are made up and the ratings do not matter.
Coming out of WrestleMania 30, one of the most talked about wrestlers was Cesaro. WWE seemingly dropped the ball in following up on that momentum. Today we are asking a simple question: what if WWE actually did something with Cesaro in 2014?
WrestleMania 30 and the RAW after
WrestleMania 30. The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Cesaro picks up Big Show and throws him over the top rope to win the whole thing. The crowd loses their mind. The moment is incredible. It is the kind of organic reaction that tells you everything you need to know about where a guy stands with the audience.
The next night on RAW, something is different. Paul Heyman's music hits. He walks out alone, no Brock Lesnar in sight, and he stands in the middle of the ring with that look on his face. The one that means he has already won whatever is about to happen. He grabs the mic and he does what Paul Heyman does better than anyone alive. He makes a case.
He says that last night at WrestleMania, while the world was watching Daniel Bryan and while the internet was talking about the streak, something happened in that battle royal that nobody is prepared to fully appreciate yet. A man picked up Big Show, seven feet tall, five hundred pounds, and threw him over the top rope like he was nothing. He says he has been in this business long enough to know what a star looks like. And ladies and gentlemen, his name is Cesaro.
Cesaro walks out to a massive reaction. He stands next to Heyman and says absolutely nothing. He does not need to. Heyman does the talking. Cesaro does everything else. The partnership is official.
The IC Tournament and Extreme Rules
WWE runs a tournament to determine the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship at the next PPV, Extreme Rules. In real life Bad News Barrett won it. Good for Barrett, genuinely, but not today SUCKA. Today Cesaro enters that bracket and goes through it like a wrecking ball.
Heyman is at ringside for every single match. Every Cesaro win gets a full Heyman promo afterward. Dolph Ziggler goes down. Sheamus goes down. Rob Van Dam goes down in the final. Each victory is treated like a coronation. By the time Cesaro wins the tournament, the crowd is not just watching him win matches. They are watching a monster get built in real time.
(Imagine that. Actually building someone up before giving them the title shot. Revolutionary stuff from this fantasy booking writers room.)
Cesaro vs. Big E for the Intercontinental Championship. The match is hard hitting and physical because both of these guys are absolute units who are going to beat the life out of each other for ten minutes. Heyman is losing his mind at ringside, equal parts coach and hype man. In the closing stretch, Cesaro sets Big E up in the middle of the ring, hoists him up, and hits the Neutralizer. Except this is Extreme Rules. So Cesaro drags him to the floor first and hits it on the concrete outside. Big E is out cold on the concrete and Cesaro rolls him back in for the pin. Clean. Dominant. No shenanigans. Heyman raises Cesaro's arm and cuts a promo about how this is only the beginning, and for once in his career, he is actually telling the truth.
Cesaro is your new Intercontinental Champion.
Payback
On the RAW after Extreme Rules many wrestlers make it known they want to go for Cesaro’s new championship belt, including a Big E who wants his belt back - but later on in the night, Heyman cuts a promo saying Cesaro will not be defending the title at Payback. This is because Cesaro is already booked for a match that night, thanks to Paul Heymans advocating and negotiating.
The match booked: Cesaro vs. Sheamus for the United States Championship, and I want to be very clear about something: this feud absolutely fucks. Two massive physical wrestlers who hit each other incredibly hard. No nonsense, no gimmicks, just two guys going to war.
Sheamus gives him everything he has got. Cesaro gives it right back. At one point Sheamus hits the Brogue Kick clean and Cesaro barely gets his shoulder up, which genuinely surprises everyone in the building including Heyman, who looks like he is reconsidering some life choices at ringside. But Cesaro finds the Neutralizer, picks up the win, and walks out with both belts over his shoulders.
Here is where something interesting starts to happen. The crowd is half booing him. The other half seems to be coming over onto his side, with an energy that says this guy might be the most impressive thing in the building on any given night. The tweener zone. It is not something WWE manufactured. It is something Cesaro earned.
Money in the Bank
On the road to Money in the Bank, Heyman announces Cesaro is unavailable to defend his belts at the upcoming PPV because once again, he is already booked. Heyman expresses disappointment that he was unable to get Cesaro into the main event ladder match for the vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship, but rest assured Cesaro will win the briefcase.
We get to the event and the match is fantastic. (Obviously. Could you imagine if I booked it to be terrible? No. It is simply incredible. Meltzer would poop his pants.) As Heyman predicted, Cesaro pulls down the briefcase. Nobody could stop him.
Cesaro is now double champion AND Mr. Money in the Bank. In one night he has accumulated more leverage than almost anyone on the roster. Heyman is crying at ringside. Happy tears. The man found his meal ticket.
But the night is not over yet.
Earlier in the evening, Alberto Del Rio was found laid out backstage. He was in the main event, but he has been beaten up so badly that he is no longer able to compete. Later in the evening, the main event ladder match gets underway without a replacement announced. But at the climax, a familiar music hits.
BROCK. LESNAR. IS. HERE.
Lesnar enters and dismantles everyone in the championship match. Nobody is safe. He climbs the ladder, pulls down the title, and stands at the top of the mountain looking like the most terrifying human being on planet earth. Lesnar is your new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Heyman rushes to the ring, beaming. He has both his guys standing tall on the same night. This is the moment he has been building toward. He waves Cesaro in and for one brief second it looks like everything is going to be fine. The three of them are in the ring together. Two champions. One advocate.
Then Lesnar looks at Cesaro.
Lesnar does not share the advocate. Cesaro, battered and beaten from his own match earlier in the night, never sees it coming. Germans. F5. Cesaro is left in a pile. Heyman stands there frozen, looking back and forth between the two men.
Then he walks over to stand next to Lesnar.
Just like that. Heyman has made his choice. The bigger meal ticket wins every time.
Lesnar and Heyman leave, while Cesaro laid out alone in the ring.
Battleground
The build to Battleground is where Heyman severs the ties to Cesaro to realign himself with Lesnar. He cuts promos explaining that everything Cesaro has, he got because of Paul Heyman. The IC title? Heyman positioned him. The US title? Heyman built the momentum. The briefcase? Heyman's guidance. Without Heyman, Cesaro is just a strong guy with a funny accent.
Then the other shoe drops. Heyman reveals that the contract Cesaro signed when the two of them joined up, the one he probably should have read more carefully, gives Heyman booking power over Cesaro's next two PPV appearances. And Heyman has already exercised that power. At Battleground, both the Intercontinental and United States Championships are on the line. Against The Miz and Alberto Del Rio. At the same time. Two former world champions. Two heels who will take every shortcut available. Cesaro versus the world.
Come Battleground and Cesaro does not even make it to the ring clean. Lesnar is waiting. Before the match officially begins, after Miz and Del Rio have their entrance, Lesnar comes out of nowhere and destroys Cesaro in the entranceway. Germans on the floor. F5 on the ramp. By the time Lesnar walks away, Cesaro is in pieces.
But then Cesaro gets up.
Slowly. Painfully. He makes his way to the ring because he is not the kind of man who stays down, which is exactly what Heyman is counting on. Miz and Del Rio are already waiting. Two on one, against a man who has nothing left in the tank. The result is inevitable. Cesaro loses both titles.
Everything is gone. The IC title. The US title. Just like that. Cesaro is standing in the ring with nothing except the briefcase, which Heyman cannot touch because it is a Money in the Bank contract and not part of the original agreement. That detail is going to matter.
Heyman knew it too. That is why he is already working on the next part of the plan.
Summerslam
On the road to Summerslam, Heyman reveals that he has used his last PPV booking power. The Money in the Bank briefcase is officially on the line at Summerslam. Cesaro cannot cash it in spontaneously. He cannot use it as a surprise. He has to still be in possession of it to defend it in this upcoming match, or face termination. Heyman is systematically stripping him of every piece of leverage he has built up. And the opponent he chose is Rusev.
Rusev at this point is genuinely terrifying. Undefeated. Unstoppable. Lana at ringside. Nobody has been able to lay a hand on him. Swagger tried. Big E tried. The whole roster has bounced off this man like he is made of concrete. Heyman looked at a beaten, beltless, advocateless Cesaro and figured this was the nail in the coffin.
The match is a war. Rusev throws Cesaro around the ring. Every Accolade attempt is a near disaster. Every Cesaro comeback gets a bigger reaction than the last because nobody in that building is sure he can actually do this.
But he does it.
The Neutralizer. Clean. No interference. No shortcuts. One, two, three.
Cesaro wins and keeps the briefcase. The crowd absolutely loses their mind because they have watched this man get systematically dismantled for two months and he just beat the most unstoppable wrestler on the roster with nothing but his own two hands.
After the match Cesaro gets the microphone. The crowd is buzzing. He stands there for a second and lets it land. Then he says he has been thinking about what to do with this briefcase. He could cash it in any time he wants, any place he wants, and there is nothing Paul Heyman can do about it anymore. He says he is not going to do any of that. He is going to do something Heyman would never do, because Heyman does not understand what it means to actually earn something. He is cashing in his Money in the Bank contract for a match at Night of Champions. Scheduled. Announced. No surprises. Cesaro versus Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Face to face. May the better man win.
The crowd goes absolutely insane. Heyman, watching from backstage, presumably has the worst night of his professional life.
Night of Champions
We get straight to Night of Champions. The match starts and Lesnar is Lesnar. Germans. F5. The whole greatest hits package. Cesaro is taking an absolute beating and the crowd is screaming for him because they have been on this journey and they know what it cost him to get here. Heyman is at ringside looking smug. This is going exactly according to plan.
Then the music hits.
Curtis Axel and Ryback come through the curtain.
Nobody knows what this means. The crowd is trying to process it. Heyman is trying to process it. Even Lesnar pauses for a second because nothing about this makes sense yet.
Then suddenly, Rusev slides into the ring and attacks Lesnar.
The crowd is completely lost now. The undefeated monster. The man Cesaro beat at SummerSlam. Attacking Cesaro’s opponent.
Axel and Ryback join in and go after Lesnar.
Except Lesnar is not going down easy. Because Lesnar is never going down easy. He throws Axel across the ring. He catches Ryback with a German. He stares down Rusev and the two absolute monsters collide in the middle of the ring while the crowd loses their mind. Three men are coming at him and he is fighting all of them off because he is the most terrifying human being on the planet and three is not always enough.
Then Cesaro gets back up.
Slowly. The crowd rises with him. Lesnar turns around and the numbers finally catch up and Cesaro hits the Neutralizer.
Cesaro is your NEW WWE World Heavyweight Champion. This new faction is standing tall. Heyman is somewhere in the back staring at a wall and reconsidering every decision he has ever made.
The next night on Raw, the four of them stand in the ring together for the first time with microphones and an explanation the audience has been waiting all night to hear.
Cesaro goes first. He says Heyman taught him everything about leverage. About positioning. About making sure the right pieces are in place before you make your move. He spent months being Heyman's student. Last night he graduated. He just used everything Heyman taught him against the man who taught it to him.
Ryback goes next. Short and simple. Heyman promised him the world and then handed him a broom. He spent months watching Lesnar get title shots while he got nothing. When Cesaro called, picking up the phone was the easiest decision he ever made.
Axel nods along. Says he does not need a long speech. He was a Paul Heyman guy. Now he is a Discarded. The difference is one of those actually means something.
Then Rusev. He speaks slowly and deliberately. He says in his country, when a man defeats you, you do not run from him. You respect him. Cesaro beat him clean at SummerSlam when nobody else could. That is not an embarrassment. That is a man worth standing next to.
Cesaro holds up the WWE Championship. Four men who got thrown away by the system, by an advocate, by a company that did not see what was right in front of them. Standing tall with the most important title in the business.
They call themselves The Discarded. And they are just getting started.
Final Verdict
Cesaro did not need a rocket strapped to his back. He needed one person to believe in him for the right reasons, and one person to betray him for the wrong ones. Heyman walking away from that beaten man in the ring at Money in the Bank is the moment this whole story pivots on. Everything before it is the build. Everything after it is the payoff. And the payoff is four men showing up at Night of Champions to collect what they were owed. Three of them were thrown away by the same advocate. One of them simply respected the only man who could beat him. Together they were enough. WWE had a main event caliber star sitting right in front of them in 2014. They just forgot to look down.
Agree? Disagree? Would you have booked it differently? Sound off and let me know. Until next time, we are Hanging Beachside.