Despite having a well-received and great tenure in ECW, professional wrestler Steve Corino did reveal that there were unused plans that would have had his time with the company going a much different route.
Speaking on the Wrestling Then and Now podcast, Corino revealed that during Justin Credible’s run as ECW World Champion, there were plans by Paul Heyman and other to have Corino became a “babyface” and then turn heel against Tommy Dreamer, similar to an old storyline featuring wrestling icons Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes.
“After Justin loses the title to Jerry Lynn in October,” said Corino. “I’m a babyface, I kind of like being a babyface, so I’m not even thinking about the title, I’m kind of enjoying myself, and knowing that the idea is eventually to go back to heel where people Paul wanted to do…you remember the Ole Anderson/Dusty Rhodes angle, where for a year Ole pretends to be a babyface, just for that moment to get Dusty’s trust to get him in the cage against the Assassins? So that was Paul’s idea was, the babyfaces would be like, ‘Let’s give Corino a chance.’ And it ends up where like, I get Dreamer’s trust to do a cage match, and then I turn against him. And then we’re off to the races. So it went from ‘Hey, we’d like to put the title on you to man,’ to ‘You’re going to be Ole Anderson.’”
Corino went on to note that he was excited about the idea, but that things eventually fell apart, and in shocking fashion, he was then told he would be winning the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
“And I’m like, ‘Hell yeah. I just got to wrestle Dusty Rhodes and now me and Dreamer, we’re going to be Ole and Dusty? This is right up my alley.’ I didn’t care about the title,” Corino said. “And, yeah, it comes to the November pay-per-view. And like a week or two before, Paul says, ‘Hey, look, this is what I’m doing. We’re gonna put the title back on Justin.’ I said, ‘Okay, cool.’ And he goes, so you and Justin, we’re gonna go back for a little bit. And then we’ll get to the Dreamer stuff. I’m like, ‘Cool,’ and he’s like, ‘But just remember, you’re never gonna beat Justin. So think about things that like, get you so close, but keep you sympathy so when you turn heel against Dreamer, I hate you even more.’
“And then that day at like 3:30 Sandman goes ‘Yeah, congratulations, they’re putting the title on you tonight.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, right.’ And then here comes Jerry Lynn, and Jerry’s like, ‘Hey, let’s make this the best match possible for you.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ And then here comes Justin, and he said ‘Man, I have an idea. Can we do this,’ and I’m like, ‘Am I winning?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah!’ So it ended up coming full circle. And I think it was, there was talk that Justin, Jerry and Sandman had, breach of contract claims, because things were not great financially. And I didn’t, and I thought, ‘Oh, man, I wonder if this is a put it on him because it’s safe, and we’ll go from there,’ you know? But yeah, it was cool. It was really cool. I never got to do the Dreamer in the cage thing though.”
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