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NBA star Shaquille O'Neal will make his AEW in-ring debut on the March 3 episode of AEW Dynamite. He is set to compete in a mixed tag team match alongside Jade Cargill against Red Velvet and Cody Rhodes.
The four-time NBA Champion appeared on the post-game show "Inside the NBA" on January 28, and he agreed to wrestle Cody after The American Nightmare had called him out on an episode of AEW Dynamite.
It would have made sense to add such a big match to the AEW Revolution card, which is only four days away from the scheduled date of this bout. Many thought that putting the match on Dynamite was a bit odd.
However, Dave Meltzer of WON made note of the fact that on the date of the AEW Revolution event, Shaq would be at the All-Star game which was just recently rescheduled to March 7, thus reserving him for the day.
Meltzer further noted that putting the match on AEW Dynamite would also be a good strategy for boosting their TV Ratings for that week. This match will mark Shaq's second-ever bout inside of a professional wrestling ring.
His first wrestling match was in 2016 when he participated in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 32.
With Shaq set to wrestle on AEW Dynamite, it will definitely bring some mainstream attention to AEW and the promotion can largely benefit from it.
AEW has been building the feud between Shaq and Cody Rhodes since November 2020
After Darby Allin defeated Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship, Cody had to look for a new rivalry. Thus on November 11, AEW introduced Jade Cargill to the fans who teased that Shaq would be coming after Cody soon.
However, the feud wasn't pursued as actively for a couple of months since Cody was occupied with Team Taz for a while. Nonetheless, AEW made an effort to keep the rivalry in the background and kept reminding the viewers about it from time to time, with references to Shaq.
The rivalry has picked up pace now and fans can expect more TV time on AEW Dynamite to be reserved for this feud. Only time will tell whether or not this feud will garner positive feedback, but Shaq's presence on AEW could mean a notable increase in viewership for Dynamite.
