While people were discussing Shane McMahon’s meeting with AEW President Tony Khan at a private Arlington airport this week and the possibility of him joining the promotion, some speculated it was a leverage play to return to WWE.
When McMahon left WWE in 2009, he sold all of his WWE stock to fund his other business ventures. When he returned in 2016, he was only under a high-paying wrestling contract and lacked the power he once possessed as an executive.
People in WWE turned against McMahon after the 2022 Royal Rumble debacle, in which he allegedly tried to make the match about himself and drew criticism from wrestlers in the match for his behavior in gorilla.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer stated that, while McMahon has attempted to return to the company, those in charge have no interest in him returning.
Meltzer said, “I know Shane McMahon has looked to get back in WWE. I know that the people in charge of WWE have no interest in him. Could that change with the idea that he would be willing to go to AEW? Maybe, maybe not. Would he really be willing to go to AEW? I don’t know where his mind is……Shane got a lot, a lot of money if you compare the amount of money Shane got for the amount of work that he did when he was an active few-times-a-year pro wrestler. It was a really high number.”
Meltzer later added, “Like I said, is it a leverage play for him to try to get back in WWE? Wouldn’t surprise me at all but I know from people in WWE, yeah, like I said, he’s tried to get back and they don’t have interest. There’s a lot of negativity, I would say, has been there for a long time. And his coming back, it wasn’t like when he was gone they were begging him to come back. Linda (McMahon) pushed very, very hard for a long time for him to come back and they took him back because there was injuries and they knew him and Undertaker was going to do business (at WrestleMania 32). He had no role in the company other than very highly paid talent. But…he had no executive position, nothing like that.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
