WWE officials could’ve gone in a different way at this event.

As seen at Saturday’s NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia event at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the WWE Network, former ROH World Champion Adam Cole put on a great Extreme Rules match with Aleister Black but lost.

As seen at Sunday’s WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view event in Philadelphia on the WWE Network, he entered the Royal Rumble match.

Although, now, it’s been reported that is not how things were originally planned.

Dave Meltzer reported on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio that there was originally a pitch for Cole to accept Bobby Roode’s U.S Title open challenge.

The plan was scrapped after they realized that it wouldn’t be the best thing for Cole to lose in 8 minutes on the kickoff show. Thus, they didn’t go through with it.

As noted, there were originally some plans for Dolph Ziggler to accept the U. S Title open challenge. But that was changed as well.

Cole was with Ring of Honor from 2009 - 2017. During his run with the company, he held the World Championship three times and World Television Championship one time.

Over the last year, it was expected that Cole would sign with the sports entertainment company and would have happened sooner had the WWE and Ring of Honor legal issues not taken place.

As soon as WWE started signing former ROH stars like Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly, Cole, who the company has had eyes on for years, was imminent as far as coming in.

Cole spoke with WWE.com back in October about his decision to sign with the sports entertainment company and being paired with Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish.

“Here's the deal. You don't make a statement unless you make noise. We knew that what we were doing was going to cause a lot of ruckus.

We knew it would get people talking. And that's exactly what we wanted. The only way you make a name for yourself in this sport is to make a statement, a loud statement, and that's exactly what we did at TakeOver: Brooklyn.

When you say the word "undisputed," what do you think of? You think of something that is untouchable, undeniable. Myself, Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly are all of those things. We've proven before we got here that we are one in a million, and we'll do it again here in NXT.

Also, people talk about the different eras in wrestling — The Golden Era, The Attitude Era, The Reality Era. This is our era; it's our time to show the world who runs this sport.”