WWE News: The Authority Coming Back Next Week, Rivalry With Shane McMahon To Start Soon

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, better known as The Authority these days, have both been MIA since the end of WrestleMania 32. Triple H lost his WWE World Heavyweight Championship to Roman Reigns in the main event, and The Game along with the Billion Dollar Princess both looked disappointed by the loss. We all knew Reigns was going to walk in and win the title regardless of how fans feel about The Samoan Powerhouse.

It seems WWE is running with two storylines regarding The Authority being gone. One is the fact that they wanted Triple H to sell the loss to Reigns. On the other hand, it is assumed that they are also hyping up that Vince McMahon feels Shane McMahon is actually running WWE RAW better than The Authority. To be honest, all three RAW events since Shane took over have been quite good and much better than the kind of material we saw even in the lead-up to WrestleMania.

Eventually, however, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon will both want to come back, and they have the right to do so. When will they be back? According to Cageside Seats, we could see them back as soon as next week. The idea is that both will be going into a storyline with Shane McMahon upon their return, most likely over the control of RAW.

The plan rumored for their program involves the brand split. Reports claimed that before Shane ever came back to television, WWE was planning to do a brand split at some point this year. The cool part for WWE is that Shane coming back fell into their lap and gave them someone to use for the brand split storyline.

Most believe WWE is going with the brand split idea for a few reasons. First and foremost, despite injuries, the WWE has a huge roster of stars who need to be used better. WWE cannot use them all in a major way because they are focused on the top 20 percent of talent. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the company’s stars don’t get their due. This is not even bringing up WWE NXT and the many people WWE continues to add there.

Fans want to see the split because they know the usage of talent should improve, especially if the company allows for two different writing staffs to work for each show. Right now, WWE SmackDown is considered the “wrestling show,” where the company has most of the wrestlers, well, wrestle. Meanwhile, RAW is the story-driven show, mostly considered variety. The problem is that SD! has turned into more of a recap show for RAW and normally does not matter to the programming. You could miss it and anything that might have had relevance would be covered on RAW.

USA Network realizes that SD! is a potential goldmine for them if the WWE can improve the show. That meant a split needed to occur just to give SmackDown its own brand identity, and the same goes for RAW. This keeps things from being useless or stale. The idea is that Shane would run RAW and The Authority would run SmackDown.

The rumor going around is that this will be sort of a test run for Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Basically, The Authority would run the show in front of the scenes but also behind the scenes too. They would run the show storyline-wise without the oversight or input of Vince. Now, of course, big decisions like the WWE World Title would go through Vince McMahon, but the show itself would be completely run by Triple H and Stephanie on their own. Meanwhile, RAW would be controlled by Shane, but Vince would oversee the show still.

Triple H has already proven he can put on a great show with WWE NXT. Meanwhile, Stephanie has been great for years when it comes to using talent. Both have been part of the creative side of WWE for over a decade now, so they are more than qualified for this. If they end up doing well with this, chances are that they will end up controlling WWE down the line. While it has always been assumed, Vince does not like that. Vince doesn’t want people assuming anything. That means Triple H and Stephanie will have to continue to prove themselves. Where Shane fits in all of this outside of being the face of RAW authority is not yet known.

[Image via WWE]