Matt Morgan was originally meant to debut in WWE as the third Brother of Destruction, and feud with his on-screen brother Kane as the biblically-named Abel.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast, former WWE star Matt Morgan, former WWE and TNA star Matt Morgan was asked about the rumours that he was meant to play the brother of Kane in the WWE.
The rumour was that he was set to play Abel, wearing a mask like Kane and feuding with the star. This would have been very similar to how Kane debuted in the WWE in 1996, attacking The Undertaker inside the very first Hell in a Cell match.
At the time, Matt Morgan was the top wrestler in OVW. He was the babyface champion and was being built up to have a babyface run on the main roster. However, one day Stephanie McMahon made the call for Morgan to start wearing a mask and working on his body language inside the ring.
Jim Cornette, who was the booker at the time. was not privy to why he had to make his top star wear a mask, but because he is “freaking brilliant”, according to Matt Morgan, he made it work.
“So you were the first person I told that to, I’ve never shared that story before. So no, Johnny Ace and Stephanie [McMahon] wanted me to wear a mask to work on my body language, right?”
“And so I remember Jim Cornette just being like, what? What are you doing? He’s like our top babyface champion. Why have you got to wear this? This is stupid, like, totally put me over. And I’ll always be grateful to Jimmy for that. I love Jimmy. And anyway, so they put me in this stupid mask, and Jimmy found a way to make it work because he’s freaking brilliant.”
While he never made his debut as Abel in the WWE, Matt Morgan did in 2003 when he was named by Paul Heyman as one of the five men on Brock Lesnar’s Survivor Series team.