WWE Magazine Once Went Rogue To Get The Hurricane Over
The WWE's many different appendages are usually in lockstep when it comes to advancing the show's storylines and characters, from how the commentary team talks about the wrestlers on TV all the way down to how the company's social media teams post about its superstars.
But back in the early 2000s, former WWE Magazine writer Brian R. Solomon said the staff once went rogue and put "The Hurricane" Gregory Helms on the cover in an effort to push the wrestler's budding popularity to the next level. Solomon made the revelation on Twitter recently while fans were discussing Helms' shocking upset over The Rock on "WWE Raw" in early 2003. Helms seemed like wrestling's next unlikely star before he was soon squashed in a match with Triple H later that month, silencing his fans' hope that he might be poised to break out into WWE's main event scene.
"We were among the excited ones, and put Hurricane on the cover of WWE Magazine to try to help him get over more," Solomon tweeted. "We did this completely on our own, without consulting TV, so when they buried him immediately as the issue was ready to come out, we couldn't help but see it as spite."
While Helms' superhero character was often the butt of many jokes in WWE, his career was anything but a sideshow. The decorated pro wrestler won six titles during his tenure in WWE, including two runs as the WWE Cruiserweight Champion and twice becoming a Tag Team Champion alongside Kane and Rosey, respectively. He also held the WWF European Championship, as well as the WWF Hardcore Championship, during his nine-year run with the company. Currently, Helms is a producer with WWE.