Vince McMahon and others within WWE reportedly considered putting the WWE Championship on James Ellsworth in 2016, it has been claimed.

To his credit, James Ellsworth really got over with WWE fans during his run with the company from 2016 to 2018.

Ellsworth was brought in as a jobber for a match with Braun Strowman, but immediately caught the attention of WWE fans with his "any man with two hands has a fighting chance" line.

After that, Ellsworth was brought in for a more regular role on TV, and was even involved in the WWE title feud between AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose in 2016.

James Ellsworth beat AJ Styles three times during that run in late-2016, with WWE seemingly really getting into the comedy character.

Speaking to the Cheap Heat Productions Podcast, Ellsworth explained that there were conversations going on within WWE about having him beat Styles to win the WWE title.

Ellsworth said that he was never told by Vince McMahon about the plans, just by people within WWE, but he seemed reluctant to fully believe it was ever going to happen:

“People would come up to me like, ‘Hey, man, in the meetings they’re talking about you winning the title.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ People did say it to me. Vince McMahon himself never said it to me, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. I’m a realist – they’re not gonna put the title on me, and they shouldn’t.”

Ellsworth was involved in a big WWE title match however, turning on Dean Ambrose during his match at TLC in December 2016 against AJ Styles, costing Ambrose the title.

Ellsworth went on to stick around in WWE for a few more years, even managing Carmella and assisting her in winning the first-ever Money in the Bank ladder match.

While he may have been a fixture on WWE TV until 2018, things probably never got better for Ellsworth within the company than his involvement in the WWE title picture during his debut year.