Matt Morgan revealed that he was set to return to the WWE in 2014, making a shock return at the Royal Rumble. He had been gone from the WWE for nearly a decade at that point, making a splash in TNA with two TNA Tag Team Championship reigns.
The Blueprint never made a huge impression in WWE during his first run. He was originally set to debut as the brother of Kane, but instead saddled with a stuttering gimmick – something which was dead on arrival and could never have gotten him over.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast, the former TNA star revealed that he originally was meant to return to the WWE in 2014, 9 years after leaving the company for the first time. He was set to debut in the 2014 Royal Rumble as his “The Blueprint” gimmick from TNA.
However, weeks before the match he had a change of heart when his son was born. Not wanting to be an absentee father like many wrestlers have been on the road, he elected not to sign with the WWE and retire from wrestling full time.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Matt Morgan said about his planned Royal Rumble return.
I would have had that chance when I was supposed to go back and re-debut with them [in] 2014, January 2014. The Royal Rumble. I was going to be The Blueprint finally on WWE TV, not TNA. But my son Jackson was born January 7.
And that was something that my wife and I had been praying on for 12 straight years, we went through eight rounds of IVF, none of them worked. And by the grace of God, she naturally got pregnant, the biggest thing for me in my life ever, ever! And so when he was born, and I held him for the first time, this switch went off in my head, I’m done. I’m not going back on the road, I need to be a dad and I need to be home here every night, you know, with my son.
It was probably for the best that he turned down that return. While he got to enjoy the time with his new born son, the 2014 Royal Rumble was an absolute mess, with the match being hijacked by the fans due to Daniel Bryan’s exclusion. Everybody in the bout was booed once it was made clear that The Goat would not be in the match, including Rey Mysterio and the eventual winner Batista.
You can watch Matt Morgan’s full interview with Chris Van Vliet down below;