What If... Vince McMahon Booked AEW?!

What would Vince McMahon make of Orange Cassidy?!

by Michael Sidgwick
Kenny Omega
AEW/BTE

This is a thought exercise penned for the purposes of comedy. If you like Vince McMahon, you won't like it. You're under no obligation to consume it; it's not three hours of Monday Night Raw.

Say All Elite Wrestling for whatever reason fails to catch fire in October 2019, and the Wall Street Journal investigates Vince McMahon's abhorrent historical sexual misconduct a few years earlier. Warner, panicked - there's hardly a surplus of people with a great history doing wrestling successfully - give an alleged abuser a time slot on a Wednesday night. It isn't out of the realms of possibility, and if you think that it is, you might need somebody to Power Slap some sense into your head.

Everything you love about AEW is of course dead now, with Vince at the helm. Consider the Elite's run in 2021, during which Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks descended into megalomania. It was incredible; they hid in limos to pretend that they were big shots, and not sh*t-scared of Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. Nick Jackson squealed as Michael Nakazawa mistakenly honked the horn, thinking he was under attack. Kenny Omega deadpanned "Did I explode?" to rescue the disaster that was the Exploding Barbed Wire Death match. In general - drawing countless subplots into its spiderweb, like the rise of Jurassic Express, the Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston bromance, and the debut of Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole - the Elite's arc was piss funny, and the heel shenanigans were eventually thwarted with two classic babyface triumphs. The Lucha Bros. defeated the Young Bucks at All Out, and Hangman Page dethroned Omega at Full Gear. Entertaining episodic TV with a happy ending?

F*ck off, pal!

What's in place of all those things?

Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks: you're off the creative committee. This is Vince's show, and there's no need for anybody else beyond a fleet of writers whose job it is to pop him in a frightening game, the objective of which is to emerge unscathed from the horror of Vince McMahon. Think of this along the lines of a survival horror title - like the original Resident Evil for the PS1, only slightly less graphically sophisticated, looking at Vince these days.

CONT'D...(1 of 5)

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and surefire Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!