PARKS’S TAKE: If AEW brought in Shane McMahon, would it feels petty and desperate or serve fans something special and novel?

The possibility of Shane McMahon showing up in AEW has become a hot topic since a picture of McMahon and Khan meeting in an airport was leaked on social media on Wednesday. What had once been idle chatter and speculation became very real, very quickly.

Even though Shane is not the performer he once was, there has to be a temptation from Khan to utilize him in some way. A McMahon appearing on a rival company’s airwaves in 2024 would be big news and would garner AEW – and Shane-O-Mac – a lot of attention. Khan has, in the past, expressed frustration with how WWE has treated AEW, from allegations of tampering with contracted wrestlers to WWE’s public relations team handing out deceptive fast national ratings to paint AEW programming in a bad light.

In 2022, when Khan felt WWE was messing with AEW’s PPV scheduling, he told a group of reporters that “I’m not going to sit back and take this f****** s***.” If he still harbors those grudges, he may see signing a McMahon as a way to “get back at” WWE, even though no McMahon is officially affiliated with the company anymore.

Khan has often been criticized by wrestling analysts as going for “sugar rush” type booking, and McMahon would be the ultimate example of that. For a one-off, I guess using McMahon in some way on AEW TV would be fine. It would get the buzz AEW would want without having to find a permanent role for someone whose capacity as a character is limited in 2024.

But if Khan and McMahon are talking about any kind of long-term on-screen relationship, that could prove problematic. AEW wants to be seen as an alternative to WWE, but how can you present yourself as an alternative when YOUR television featurss more McMahons on-screen than your competition? Shane carries the baggage of being a featured player during some of the most downtrodden times of WWE creative when McMahons were clogging up Raw and Smackdown.

There’s a certain desperation that would be felt in the use of Shane McMahon by AEW. A portion of their fanbase would enjoy it, and there are still fans of Shane out there who pop big for his appearances. Shane’s last time on WWE TV, suffering a serious leg injury during an impromptu match with The Miz, does not portend positive things moving forward. Khan coming to an agreement with Shane would satiate his desire for revenge against WWE, but we’ve seen throughout wrestling history that those moments do not often pair up with sound business decisions.

Wade Keller and Brandon LeClair discussed the possibility of Shane McMahon in AEW including how to best utilize him. It’s one of the final few topics on the show, so fast-forward if you want to jump right to that topic.

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