Konnan says former WWE star might have made a special demand to Tony Khan before re-signing with AEW

Konnan feels that a former WWE star might have made a special demand to Tony Khan. This comes after news broke that he re-signed with AEW.

It's been a couple of years since Buddy Matthews joined AEW. As soon as he joined Tony Khan's promotion, he was placed in the House of Black. Together, they have been a successful trio and even captured the AEW Trios Championship. Despite their dominance in the ring, the House of Black have not been seen on television in a while.

In fact, their last televised match was against the Bang Bang Gang on an episode of Collision in June. However, Brody King and Malakai Black have competed since then but Buddy Matthews hasn't been seen on television due to a storyline injury.

It was recently reported that Matthews had requested his release but Tony didn't grant it and instead re-signed him for more money. Speaking on his Keepin' It 100 podcast, Konnan believed that Tony did not want to lose Buddy Matthews to WWE so he made him a deal he couldn't refuse. He further indicated that Buddy could've demanded some creative protection from the AEW boss:

"There's a war right now and they lost Okada, they lost Mone, they lost Ospreay. Tony lost Dragon Lee to them and you know, Punk, Cody, and now Stephanie Vaquer and it would not be just as a image coup that he's not losing all his wrestlers again, especially since they just lost Vaquer, that he made them a deal they couldn't refuse and they were like, 'Alright we'll stay,' and maybe if they were smart they said, 'Creatively, you need to protect us and I want it in writing.'" [1:08 - 1:48]

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Dutch Mantell is skeptical about Tony Khan's photo with Shane McMahon

The biggest news story this week was Shane McMahon's private meeting with Tony Khan in Arlington on July 29th, 2024. A picture from the meeting was leaked online and it went viral on social.

Speaking on his Story Time with Dutch Mantell, the former WWE manager seemed skeptical of the picture stating that the guy in the picture doesn't look like Shane-O-Mac:

"The photo doesn't show Shane, it does? It didn't even look like him to me, I don't know. [...] To me it doesn't look like him. [...] Okay listen, I don't think anybody just popped in that room, 'Click' and left and they were looking at it, so was that... apparently it was leaked from Tony Khan, gotta be leaked."

It remains to be seen if Shane McMahon will actually join AEW given his history with WWE.