WWE Network's premiere episode of Something Else to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard revealed a number of interesting stories from WWE's past. An initial conversation about WrestleMania XIV veered off into a discussion of Shane McMahon and one of the topics that came up was Shane's involvement in the WWE purchase of WCW and the eventual invasion angle. As the story goes, what most fans know to be WWE buying WCW could have gone much differently.

As the titular host of Something Else to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard tells the story, at the time of WWE purchasing WCW, Shane was working in the TV studio department of WWE, and often in the sales office as he was just beginning to learn the aspects of WWE business. He was a man of ideas and his focus was trying to see where WWE could go next with new ventures.

Shane had just come off of working closely with Mike Tyson and, in a way, been his handler when he was given the task of being a big part of the WCW storyline, potentially taking the reigns and running the WCW side of the business. One idea Shane had was something vastly different than what WWE did.  Shane's idea was to have WCW completely split from WWE and operate completely independently. This would include different offices, a different brand, different management and different wrestlers who didn't cross over.

Prichard said, "Shane always had out there ideas. Shane was one of the big proponents when we did the WCW brand split." He added, Shane's idea was to take over the WCW offices in Atlanta and run it in a different part of the country away from being under Vince's thumb. It was an idea that never came to pass and as Prichard added, "Vince thought that was crazy."

As the podcast went on, Prichard also said Shane was looking to get the family into the MMA business. "He was always looking at something else to expand and grow."

One can only imagine how things might have been different had Shane gotten his way and WCW stayed WCW without any involvement from Vince and WWE Superstars.

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