Tonight’s AEW Dynamite will kick off with NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal making his in-ring debut in a mixed-tag match alongside Jade Cargill against Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet. The show will also see Paul Wight, better known from his two decades in WWE as The Big Show, make his first appearance after signing with the company last week. Fans of either man will likely remember that both teased the idea of wrestling each other in a match for years, but the closest Shaq ever came to actually wrestling was competing in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal back at WrestleMania 32.
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Rhodes was asked about the two appearing on the same show during a media conference call on Wednesday, and claimed that it was purely a coincidence. That is, of course, unless he’s trying to avoid spoiling a surprise.
.@jimmyv3 asks about the Paul Wight/Shaq connection.
Cody: The timing of bringing both in at the same time is purely a coincidence.
— Connor Casey (@ConnorCasey_CB) March 3, 2021
Despite their feud, Rhodes spoke highly of the work O’Neal put in hours of training heading into Wednesday night’s match.
.@bpritchard152 asks about Shaq’s claim about tonight’s being the best celebrity match ever.
Cody: If you’re showing up for a wrestling match you have to wrestle. And Shaq trained. If he’s the man we know, by all means, we can set a new standard. #AEW
— Connor Casey (@ConnorCasey_CB) March 3, 2021
He explained in an interview with the New York Post last month how this feud, which has gone on for quite a while despite either man getting physical, came about.
“What happened is really what fans saw. He tweeted about me (in August 2020) and didnt, I don’t think, particularly know me. He just knew he had a show on TNT and we had seen each other at the upfronts and ‘Dynamite’ was kicking ass and I think he chose an in-house professional wrestler to pick on,” Rhodes explained. “And I didn’t think much of it other than, you know, us wrestlers, we love when we see the blue (Twitter) checks, we love when we see people talking about our world.
Then the next you know, QT (Marshall) calls me like half a year ago, so this is a while ago. He called me and said, ‘Hey, I just want to make you aware of something.’ When that’s how he frames it, I know it’s going to be something about the Nightmare Factory. He said, “I just want to make you aware of it that Shaq came in and started training. I said, well send me a video, I’ve got to see it. He’s done a good amount of training with QT with a couple bodies there that he can throw around and things of that nature,” he continued. “Right at that moment, I knew we were into an area where this could really, seriously happen. We really jumped on it in the best way we could. QT is really technically responsible for that. He and (AEW president) Tony Khan because he and Tony have a great relationship as well. It kind of willed itself into existence like so many other things in AEW.”
