What if Shane McMahon is Kofi Kingston’s first challenger for the WWE title?

WrestleMania 35 saw an all-time feel-good moment when Kofi Kingston made good on the last two months of storylines, and his last eleven years as a diligent worker, to emerge WWE Champion. It’s unclear if WWE will push Kingston as a legitimate main event level star moving forward, or if, now that he’s had his moment, he’ll move back down the card to resume the mid-card and tag team work largely synonymous with his career.

Meanwhile, Shane McMahon worked arguably the next highest profile match from the SmackDown brand in a wild brawl with The Miz that culminated in him lucking into pinning The Miz. While Miz was well protected to remain a viable upper mid card or even fringe main event guy, the record will show that Shane-O-Mac pinned him at WrestleMania.

Both Kingston and McMahon could reasonably see their feuds from WrestleMania carry forward for another month or more. If WWE really wants to shake things up, though, Kingston could defend his title against a new challenger, and McMahon is as well positioned as anyone to step into that role.

This article considers: what if Shane McMahon is Kofi Kingston’s first challenger for the WWE Championship?

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#3 Shane McMahon has his father’s backing

Newly aligned as heels, it would make complete sense for Vince and Shane McMahon to work together against Kofi Kingston.

While the story of Kofi Kingston chasing down a world title shot at WrestleMania largely dominated SmackDown programming over the last month, the story wasn’t just about Kingston vs. Bryan. Indeed, between Vince McMahon taking Kingston out of the Fastlane title match, and then booking him and his New Day brothers into gauntlet matches, the angle had at least equally as much to do with Kingston battling McMahon.

With Vince’s son Shane now positioned as one of the top heel wrestlers on the blue brand, it would make reasonable enough sense for the younger McMahon to get positioned as Kingston’s challenger. It would particularly make sense for his father to go on pulling the strings to continue the story and give his son every advantage in their program.

While Kingston is very little like Stone Cold Steve Austin, there’s a case to be made that he has been about as successful as anyone since the Attitude Era at channeling that style of fight the machine ethos, fighting his way into a championship reign.

#2 New Day vs. the New Authority

New Day could fall into the cross hairs of a new "authority" team.

One of the compelling parts about Kofi Kingston’s run on top is that, unlike other faces who tend to stand alone, he has a built-in unit to both have his back as well as play the victim on his behalf. Xavier Woods and Big E have been terrific on the mic and between the ropes in their supporting role, right up to taking out Rowan at WrestleMania. We shouldn’t expect their role to diminish at all moving forward.

While Triple H and Stephanie McMahon seem to be settling into more face oriented roles, it has been long enough since Vince and Shane McMahon worked together that it feels relatively fresh to pair them up again. The two of them channeling other heels to do their dirty work in a program against the New Day could make for some fun matches and give some other talents the rub along the way.

While some will inevitably wind up like Sanity jobbing three on one to The Miz after Shane sent them to do his bidding, others will surely enjoy better success.

#1 Shane McMahon wins the WWE Championship

Shane McMahon has already held tag team gold this year; could he go onto capture his first world title?

On one hand, very few fans necessarily want to see Shane McMahon win a world title. Beyond just playing a heel character, there’s a general sense, particularly among the hardcore audience, that he’s not as good in the ring or as much of a draw as WWE brass makes him out to be. Of course, there is also an entitlement narrative, given he’s Vince McMahon’s son.

There’s a long history of promoters over pushing their kids at the expense of more worthy talents. When done conscientiously, though—to play into that heat—it can become a useful storyline device. Just as Shane and the Mean Street Posse played privileged heels so well in the Attitude Era, Shane could capitalize on a similar dynamic in stealing the top prize in wrestling, and in so doing becoming one of WWE’s most legitimately hated main event heels of 2019.