Cast your mind back to early 2016. Vince McMahon stood in the ring with daughter Stephanie as she went to receive the first ever Vince McMahon Legacy of Excellence award, when suddenly… HERE COMES THE MONEY! Shane O’ Mac was back! The prodigal son had finally come home, and it was such a fantastic moment because it was a genuine surprise which we see very few of these days.  It became clear almost straight away it was pretty much a given that he would be competing at WrestleMania that year considering the storyline of RAW v SDLive, and it was widely accepted by the fans who remembered his great feuds from back in the day, but unfortunately the reality has been something very different altogether.

What we were given just a few short months into his return was a quite horrible Hell in A Cell match against The Undertaker. It was boring, largely uneventful and just plain uninteresting aside from Shane’s inevitable trademark leap from the giant structure. It was an encounter which sadly failed to live up the substantial hype generated in the build-up, and it sadly just added even more fuel to the fire in terms of the ‘when will they let Taker retire?’ discussions. Taker deserved better than this.

Shane then actually managed to redeem himself by having a great feud and incredible match against AJ Styles. That really should’ve been it, going out on a high and all that, but WWE have a long history of not knowing when to quit. We were given yet another unnecessary feud, this time against Kevin Owens as retribution for KO’s disrespect for the McMahon family. Owens is one of the best performers in WWE today, but even he was unable to coax a good match out of Shane, and their Hell in A Cell encounter was average at best and once again saved by a predictable leap off the top of the cell, this time with Sami Zayn’s unexpected heel turn adding to the drama. The clever thing to do would have been move KO to RAW and have HHH seek the revenge instead as that could’ve led to a half decent match. But no, not while Shane is around with an ego to stroke.

As much as I dislike Shane I must take time to admit that he has been worth his weight in gold to the company since returning. The WWE Universe love nothing more than nostalgia, so every time Shane finds himself in another feud the fans inevitably get fully behind him. The matches themselves were poor, except for the Styles clash (pun intended), but I’ll give Shane credit where its due because he always has the other guy going over. He is the polar opposite of HHH, as much as he wants to be centre of attention he doesn’t do it at the expense of more talented guys and will happily do the honours. This raises one question though… if he isn’t going to win a major feud at some point, is his presence in the ring really needed at all? Styles, Owens, Zayn and Taker are all big enough to not need Shane to put them over, so we didn’t really gain anything from these programs.

While he may not be overshadowing the talent in the ring, the thing which bothers me the most is how much more deserving guys are losing spots to him in the first place. We’ve only recently seen pushes for the likes of Zayn and Rusev who should’ve been in much more lucrative positions over the last two years but have missed out on opportunities despite being on a show which openly prides itself on handing those out to anyone deserving. We are getting to a point now where we quite literally see more of Shane and Daniel Bryan on TV than we do of the WWE Champion AJ Styles, which is an absolute catastrophe.

You! Come back with my youth! I need to cling onto it!

The worrying thing is we know exactly what WWE are aiming towards in the long game, and it just doesn’t need to happen. The animosity between Shane and Bryan is quite clearly suggesting and teasing that a match will take place between them at Mania, and as much as we all want to see D-Bry back in action there are MUCH better opponents for him than Shane. A feud with KO makes sense considering the current storyline, as does the long-running rivalry with The Miz (hinted at again at RAW 25) coming full circle. Shane would do a huge disservice to Bryan, one of the most gifted technical wrestlers of his generation and would dampen the effect of the WWE Universe’s hero returning. To put it simply there is absolutely no need for him to compete at this year’s event.

That match is unfortunately the only one which makes sense for Shane to be a part of, but his feuds are having less and less appeal every time, so it would be hard to see how this would in any way deliver the fans expectations. The return of Bryan would be hands down the greatest WWE return of all time and should be treated as the most important match of the whole show, so a performer as talented as Bryan himself is the only way to go. The fact we have seen a lot less of Shane in recent weeks could be a good sign leading into Mania season and when you consider the potential strength of the card this time around it becomes even more clear that he just isn’t required anymore.

We already have AJ v Shinsuke Nakamura confirmed, Brock Lesnar v Roman Reigns guaranteed, Ronda Rousey likely entered into a Women’s Championship match, the potential for John Cena vs The Undertaker… does anyone really want to see a sad, ageing guy in a baseball jersey throwing poorly acted punches, getting tuckered out within 5 minutes and falling off tall things when we could have one more dream match on the card? With so many guys coming off the back of great 2017’s and even better starts to 2018, Shane’s spot could be going to a potential champion, a crowd favourite or someone capable of a 5 star match. We still have the likes of Braun Strowman, Elias, The Miz, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Baron Corbin and a whole host of amazing NXT talent who need something to do on The Grandest Stage of Them All.

Shane. We will forever be grateful for the memories and entertainment you have provided over the years, but its time to step aside. WrestleMania is bigger than you.