I’m Not Telling You Anything You Don’t Already Know

Professional wrestling has been littered with “what if” scenarios throughout its long history, some more intriguing than others. One of the biggest “what if” questions related to a wrestling character is related to Sean O’Haire and his Devil’s Advocate character. What began as something both dark and fascinating would, unfortunately, peter out far too quickly, sadly ending the WWE run of O’Haire and leaving fans wondering what could have been.

WCW Run

Having trained at the mythical WCW Power Plant training facility, the 6 foot 6, 270-pound O’Haire would debut on WCW Monday Nitro in 2000, alongside tag partner and fellow Power Plant graduate Mark Jindrak. The team would see some early success, but wouldn’t fully flourish until they later helped form The Natural Born Thrillers, a stable consisting of young talent including the team, alongside Mike Sanders, Johnny ‘The Bull’ Stamboli, Reno, Chuck Palumbo and Shawn Stasiak. O’Haire and Jindrak would win the WCW Tag Team Championships on two occasions through their run. A swap in partners resulted in the new teams of O’Haire and Palumbo, while Jindrak would team with Stasiak. O’Haire and Palumbo would have their most famous feud with The Insiders, Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page. They would also win the Tag Team Championships in the dying days of WCW, even competing on the final episode of Nitro. Given his size, agility and good look, it was no surprise that O’Haire’s contract would be picked up by the then-WWF to come in for the snake bit Invasion angle.

WWF Run

O’Haire would come into the WWF alongside Palumbo as the WCW Tag Team Champions. Unfortunately, due to their overall inexperience and lack of name power, they were essentially there as bodies to simply be run over by the WWF talent. They would be defeated by the APA at the Invasion PPV, but able to get some heat back by defeating The Hardy Boyz on an episode of SmackDown. This was unfortunately just a way to give them some credibility as they would drop the titles to The Brothers of Destruction (Undertaker and Kane) on the following week’s episode of SmackDown. They would get a rematch in a steel cage on RAW which they would also lose. Following these losses, the team faded into the background, eventually resulting in Palumbo being “fired” from the Alliance and joining the WWF, while O’Haire would be sent down to Ohio Valley Wrestling for further seasoning. He would remain there for the entirety of 2002, with the occasional appearance on Sunday Night Heat.

The Devil’s Advocate

In early 2003, vignettes began appearing with O’Haire, now with long hair and wearing a suit, inviting viewers to indulge in their most carnal desires. He would cleverly advise against paying taxes, going to church and to openly cheat on their spouses among a litany of other ideas that the more casual viewer would never even consider. On a personal note, I can’t even begin to explain how excited I was for this gimmick as it truly felt it had legs, and with O’Haire’s money look and ability, it seemed destined to lead to greatness. 

Unfortunately, the legs were cut out almost immediately. Following the surprise return of Roddy Piper at WrestleMania XIX that year, O’Haire would be slotted in as his protégé. This would sadly result in his new persona being stripped away in favor of being a glorified henchman. O’Haire would go on to be a part of the infamous Zack Gowen angle, and would even earn a victory over Hulk Hogan’s Mr. America character, albeit by countout (a clean victory didn’t work for him brother.) Following the high-profile interview Piper conducted with HBO about the dark side of professional wrestling airing, Piper would be immediately released, and O’Haire would be left to languish, a man without a boat. A few months later O’Haire would be involved in a motorcycle accident, putting him on the shelf for a few months, before returning to OVW. By the time the following year’s WrestleMania rolled around, he would be released from his contract.

What Could Have Been

First things first, as great as it is to have the rub from an absolute legend such as Piper, O’Haire did not need to be in that position. The Devil’s Advocate character had legs and truly could have been one of the most intriguing gimmicks not only of the time, but ever. Before the angle, O’Haire was clearly not known for his promo abilities, but one watch of any of the vignettes show that he had fully embraced the character and knew it was something special.

Without involving Piper, O’Haire could have continued running vignettes from their debut in January, and keep him off-screen until the SmackDown following WrestleMania, giving him that extra special debut look and feel. As opposed to the usual start that WWE favors having a new talent go over the lowest tier of talent (think of a Funaki or Scotty 2 Hotty) O’Haire would begin a rung up from that, facing and defeating talent such as Rhyno and Rikishi. As the momentum builds, the United States Championship was brought back in mid-2003 to give the SmackDown brand a mid-card title, and the winner of a tournament would be crowned the inaugural WWE United States Champion (while also sharing a lineage with the WCW/NWA counterpart of the title). In our reality, the title showdown would come down to Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, both of whom were building momentum going into their 2004 World Championship wins. In this case, I would slot out Benoit in favor of O’Haire.

Following some of Eddie’s trademark ‘lie, cheat and steal’ activity, Eddie would serve O’Haire his first loss, which would give Eddie the needed big win while also protecting O’Haire. As the tournament culminated at Vengeance, a rematch would happen at that year’s SummerSlam, where O’Haire would win the title from Eddie, freeing Eddie up for his run towards the top. Following SummerSlam and heading into Survivor Series, O’Haire would feud with the rising John Cena, constantly managing to escape with the title as Cena cements his face status. 

Come to the 2004 Royal Rumble, the two face off in a steel cage match, which O’Haire wins with help from his new heavy, The Big Show, recreating the finish from St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. At No Way Out, Cena will defeat The Big Show to earn one last title opportunity at WrestleMania with a chance to pick the stipulation. Following the victory, he chooses a Last Man Standing match, which goes all over Madison Square Garden at WrestleMania XX, giving us the true Last Man Standing match that Mania deserved after the Randy Savage/Crush debacle at WrestleMania X. John Cena finally wins the title, leaving O’Haire bloodied and beaten, only for him to disappear from television for several months.

In this instance, Eddie Guerrero still wins the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar at that year’s No Way Out and continues feuding with Kurt Angle through WrestleMania and beyond. Once their feud culminates, O’Haire would return and work his way into the title picture, similar to what happened with JBL in reality. Following a series of matches, Eddie would pass the torch to O’Haire to take some time away from the pressure of being champion. 

Just as in reality, the recently returned Deadman version of The Undertaker would challenge for the title at SummerSlam, giving us the Devil vs. The Devil’s Advocate. From this point, I would book O’Haire similar to how the remainder of JBL’s title reign was, only tweaking him to be slightly more dominant and less of a ‘chicken-shit heel.’ This would all tie back into his feud with John Cena, who would still retain his crowning moment at WrestleMania 21. 

Of course, this is all simple armchair quarterbacking, but given how much potential was left untapped, one has to truly wonder what greatness could have been achieved by Sean O’Haire. Unfortunately, in reality, he would retire shortly after leaving WWE to focus on an ill-fated kickboxing career, before ultimately taking his own life at the age of 43 in 2014.