Shane and Vince McMahon's Issues Go Back Long Before Royal Rumble Blowup

Wade Keller provided an extensive audio update on Shane McMahon on PWTorch.com discussing the blowup between Shane and his father Vince McMahon at the 2022 Royal Rumble event, revealing there were issues before the pay-per-view.

“Things really unraveled with him and his dad on Saturday,” Keller said. “Things were not good, according to what I heard.”

“If you’ve been listening carefully to me in the last month or two, you would have gotten the impression there was little chance Shane would have been at the Royal Rumble this weekend, or in WWE’s plans. I was pretty surprised when he showed up and then there were reports that he was going to be in a storyline that would weave itself all the way to Wrestlemania because of what I’ve been hearing about Shane’s status in the company, and his relationship with his dad in particular.”

On this being the "last straw for a lot of people:

“This was almost a last straw for a lot of people in WWE when it comes to Shane [and] his dad, of course, being the final decision maker on that front. So the story is for the third year in a row he was brought in to help produce the Royal Rumble. It’s sort of a dad doing a favor to his son…Shane’s creative ideas over the decades have been laughed at behind his back. I’ve reported that for decades. He was never seen as having a good creative wrestling mind. That has carried over even into his 50s when trying to help produce the Royal Rumble.”

“This was an … unexpected, sharp increase in disruptiveness in bad ideas on Saturday,” Keller said. “From what I’m told directly from people there, he was really self-centered. It was all about him [and] his ideas, and he didn’t get caught up on what the plans were for the match. He didn’t know was going on TV that was building to certain moments. And he just pulled the McMahon card with the match producers wanting things to be done his way because why else would Shane-O-Mac be brought in, if not to basically dictate something, a major chapter involving him in the match. And so he did. And it got to the point where there were heated arguments with people who felt that they could push back and a lot of stress and strife and distractions with everybody else because it was just chaos. There was a plan for the match. Shane was pushing back against producers who were simply trying to follow through on what Vince McMahon told them should be done in the match. And Shane just went way overboard. If you look at the people that Shane was fighting in the ring during the Rumble, that was his doing. That’s who he wanted to be in the ring with looking good against. I mean two of the legit kind of badass guys in WWE — Otis with his background and Riddle with his background, and Shane punched away at them. Then Kevin Owens super kicked him twice and tried to toss him out but Shane reversed him and tossed him out over the top row to eliminate him.”

“While all this is going on, Shane is sweating, profusely [and] this has been a thing for him recently, more than recently where there’s a concerning level of perspiration. It’s almost like just droplets are shooting out of his head and face.”

On Shane being willing to put over Brock Lesnar:

“So when it came time to put someone over, Shane was willing to put over Brock Lesnar,” Keller said. “But the issue with Shane really got to the next level with Vince when it came to what was planned for Raw and that Shane had real problems with how he was going to be framed as he was going to be in the Elimination Chamber. And so, Shane disagreed with what Vince wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. It was laid out to Shane what the plans were and he did like it, and he pushed back and that led to Vince just finally having enough and canceling all plans with Shane, everything that they have planned with him.”

On if Shane was released or sent home:

“I haven’t been able to confirm that it’s an actual firing because I’m not quite sure what Shane’s status is with the company in the sense that if there’s an employee or relationship that could be canceled in a traditional way firing happens. But the idea now is from what I’m hearing is he is not going to be part of WWE in any way on or off camera for the foreseeable future, which could span a long, long time. Like years. It’s father, son, it’s a family situation, who knows, right? But…because this has been festering for a while and it’s been an issue for a while, this isn’t something that just surprised everybody and it came out of nowhere on Saturday. The feeling is that this really could be the last straw. And there could be a level of professional estrangement between Vince and Shane…I haven’t found anybody who will defend Shane, in terms of how he acted on Saturday.”