Shaquille O’Neal Announced for This Week’s AEW Dynamite

Weeks after his name was suddenly brought up on All Elite Wrestling programming, NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal has been announced for this week’s edition of AEW Dynamite. The four-time NBA Champion will “address” AEW via Tony Schiavone, and undoubtedly make some sort of reference to Cody Rhodes.

Rhodes dropped the TNT Championship to Darby Allin back at the Full Gear pay-per-view, and the following week he attempted to announce what his next plans would be. He was instead interrupted by newcomer Jade Cargill, who warned him that “Shaq” was on his way to the company. Everybody immediately assumed she meant O’Neal, but Rhodes was quickly shuffled into a storyline with Team Taz before things could be addressed.

Brandi Rhodes quickly responded to the news.

O’Neal’s appearance is just one more thing to add to a loaded episode of Dynamite. Check out the card below:

• Orange Cassidy vs. MJF (Dynamite Diamond Ring)
• Kenny Omega Promo
• Sting’s First AEW Promo
• The Young Bucks vs. The Hybrid 2 (TH2 get a tag title shot if they win)
• The Inner Circle’s Ultimatum
• Abadon vs. TBA
• FTR vs. The Varsity Blondes
• Lance Archer, Rey Fenix and Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Eddie Kingston, The Butcher & The Blade

On top of all of that, Omega will appear alongside Don Callis on this week’s Impact Wrestling to explain his actions from the Winter Is Coming special. This marks the first crossover between AEW and Impact, something the Young Bucks recently admitted in an interview that they’ve been trying to set up for years.

“Two years ago, this is something Nick and I actually brought up and we wanted to get this going,” Matt said. “And for whatever reason, it just didn’t work out. I don’t know if that was more on our side or what, but we just couldn’t get everyone to agree on what the creative would be. But when Nick and I were stopping at all the indy shows and popping up at shows, going to AAA and Mexico, that was one of the suggestions we had was what if we show up in Impact? This is something we’ve been whispering in Tony Khan’s ear for two years. So we’re all about collaboration and partnering with everyone and working together. This is what we’ve always done. Even back when we were with Ring of Honor and we got the Hardys to come in when they were apart of Impact, that was also apart of our plan. So this is something that we truly wanted to do for a very, very long time. And I guess the timing was right and we got done.”

“It’s still so early, I don’t think we, all of us, collectively know what this means,” he continued. I think we’re just dipping our toes in right now and we’re going to see what we can get out of it. But there are immediate plans that I can’t exactly just give away right now. But my dream, if I had it my way, I just think about the possible dream matches. People are already hitting me up like, ‘Oh my god, can you imagine if it was the Young Bucks and the Motor City Machine Guns 10 years later?’ How can you not jump ahead and fantasize and fantasy book?”