Comic Book History: Wolverine was supposed to be Blonde?

I just saw this on John Byrne's Tumblr page. This is his original idea for Wolverine in 1976!

This is what he had to say about it:

Ah, yes — that was my original suggestion for Wolverine’s face. I sent that to Chris and he responded “You blew it! Dave has already designed Wolvie’s face." 

Not sure how that constituted me “blowing it", but that seemed to be Chris’ favorite phrase at the time. (When he asked me to draw his mother into an issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP, but sent no reference, I did the best I could based on having met her once before, and his response was “You blew it!") 

Later, I modified that Wolverine face considerably, and it became Sabretooth.
Dave’s design was, of course, based on Timberwolf, who he’d been drawing for a while in the Legion of Superheroes.

Hmm, Interesting. I wonder how it would've been with a Blonde Wolvie?