Erick Redbeard would have had a feud with Seth Rollins in early 2020 had WWE’s plans for his caged animal storyline remained the same.
In late 2019, Redbeard, then Erick Rowan would carry a cage covered in burlap to the ring and would attack anyone who tried to reveal what was inside.
Speaking to the Wrestle Buddy podcast, Redbeard discussed the plans which didn’t make it to TV:
“Originally, it (caged beast story) was supposed to lead to a feud with Seth (Rollins), involving the death of a rat accidentally which intrigued me as a character because you get the big guy who has to deal with this grief and then come to terms with this grief.
“Yeah (Seth was supposed to ‘kill it’) and why would you not wanna feud with Seth in something that could have meant something? But then obviously, he went from babyface to heel maybe like two weeks after the fact so then that whole thing got dropped and then they just didn’t know what was in the cage. “
They kept giving me TV time which you can’t get mad with TV time. You know, but how many people can you squash and not continue to tell the story. So, you know, to me it just got old and repetitive and you thought it’d make every squash match a little different and tell a little bit more story of the cage but you know, sometimes I wasn’t allowed to.”
Those plans were changed and Redbeard revealed a mechanical spider in the cage on the March 3, 2020 episode of RAW.
The spider was destroyed by Drew McIntyre the following week.
