This past week on SmackDown Live , Daniel Bryan made his long-awaited return to WWE programming. In his absence, the authority role for the brand was in the hands of Shane McMahon alone. SmackDown Live didn’t miss a step, but “the blue brand” missed Bryan’s presence on WWE television every week. However, it is an interesting coincidence that with Daniel Bryan’s return to television, Shane McMahon is now absent.
A lot of people have taken note that Shane McMahon wasn’t present for the WWE Money in the Bank PPV last weekend. He also missed this week’s edition of SmackDown Live, so the WWE Universe is wondering if Shane O’Mac will need to miss some significant time or if there is a logical reason for his absence. As it turns out, there is a good reason why Shane McMahon has been missing a few SmackDown Live events recently.
It’s being reported that some people didn’t think both Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan missing the recent PPV looked good for the brand. However, Shane missed the PPV because it was Father’s Day and he simply asked for the time off. Bryan’s return and the controversy surrounding the finish of the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match were the focal points of last week’s show, so Shane McMahon didn’t need to appear.
The point of having two authority figures is smart because they can cover their bases if one of them needs to miss a show or an extended period of time like Daniel Bryan just did with the birth of his daughter. Clearly, Bryan or Shane are expected to miss a show here and there, but there isn’t anything going on that we know of backstage that is preventing McMahon from appearing on SmackDown Live going forward this summer.
Shane McMahon has done extremely well over the past year and a half since he returned to WWE. He’s had two huge matches on the grandest stage of them all with The Undertaker and AJ Styles respectively. His role on SmackDown Live has been very important in establishing “the blue brand” as a better product than what the brand represented before the WWE Draft. Shane has done a lot to help build it into the brand it is now.
There is no telling what’s next for Shane McMahon as an active performer, but his role as the commissioner of SmackDown Live is as stable as it has ever been. Unless something changes, Shane will be on television this week and it should be the first time we have seen Shane O’Mac and Daniel Bryan on SmackDown Live together in quite some time.
[Featured Image by WWE]
