Wednesday night in Detroit, Tony Khan stood backstage at the Masonic Temple Theatre with two guys in clown makeup he’d personally invited to the building, introduced them to the crowd as his “two good friends,” and quietly closed out one of the strangest trivia questions in wrestling. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, better known as Insane Clown Posse, have now appeared in some capacity for six different major promotions. No other tag team can say that.
How Wednesday Happened
Vince Russo broke the news on The Coach and Bro Show with Jonathan Coachman, saying Khan had personally called Violent J and asked to meet him before Dynamite went on the air. “He’s very, very excited,” Russo said. “I’m very excited for him.” Sure enough, viewers watching the MyAEW pre-show caught a glimpse of Khan standing with both members of ICP, and Khan brought them out to greet the live crowd himself. The two also popped up on the AEW Advance pre-show ahead of the broadcast. There was no match, Khan simply wanted to welcome them in person, and he’s previously said on the same podcast that he’s a fan of Russo and Violent J‘s own promotion, Juggalo Championship Wrestling, which still airs weekly as JCW Lunacy.
The Six Companies
This wasn’t a novelty booking. It’s the completion of a genuinely wild resume that stretches back nearly 30 years.
It started in 1997 in ECW, where Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope were already friendly with Rob Van Dam and Sabu from the Detroit independent scene. That friendship got them booked on Hardcore Heaven, where they performed a song, got jumped by Van Dam and Sabu in an angle, and were saved by The Sandman and his cane.
A year later, WWF came calling. ICP recorded the entrance theme for the freak show stable The Oddities and appeared on the SummerSlam 1998 card at Madison Square Garden, eventually getting in the ring themselves against The Headbangers before a pay dispute over unaired commercials ended the relationship.
From there it was WCW, where the duo spent 1999 and 2000 as a legitimate fixture, forming The Dead Pool with Raven and Vampiro and later The Dark Carnival with The Great Muta and The Kiss Demon, picking up wins over acts like Public Enemy and 3 Count along the way before a handicap match against Mike Awesome ended with Shaggy taking a nasty bump off the roof of a bus.
ROH came next, and it didn’t go well. At Glory By Honor in 2002, ICP wrestled Diablo Santiago and Oman Tortuga in what turned out to be their only match for the company. The crowd, built on a very different kind of wrestling fandom, booed them out of the building and they never went back.
Then came TNA, starting in 2004, where the pair spent a couple of years feuding with allies of Jeff Jarrett (the whole thing kicked off with a can of Faygo to the eyes) before eventually promoting the company’s first ever house show in 2006.
And now, in 2026, AEW rounds out the set, with one difference from the other five: there was no match this time. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope appeared in front of the crowd and on the pre-show rather than wrestling, but it’s still their first appearance of any kind on national wrestling television in 26 years, going back to a WCW Monday Nitro in September 2000. Khan has said he wants to “do something” with them going forward, so an actual AEW match isn’t off the table.
The Internet Called This Years Ago
Wrestling fans had actually been tracking this exact bit for years. Back in May 2021, X account @MengsMullet posted a list, ECW, WWF, WCW, TNA, adding: “AEW, if you wanna be a major promotion you gotta bring in the clowns. I don’t make the rules.” That tweet racked up replies and quote tweets for years afterward as fans debated whether AEW would ever pull the trigger. One of those replies came from The Stunner’s own Rob Pasbani, correcting the list with a two word addition.
He wasn’t wrong. Add ROH to the four companies in the original post, and Wednesday’s AEW appearance rounds the number out to six. As one commenter put it while the story circulated online, Mick Foley has a similarly ridiculous cross-promotion resume of his own, but he built his as a singles star. As far as anyone can tell, Insane Clown Posse is the only tag team to pull off the same trick.
What’s Next
Khan hasn’t laid out specifics yet, but he’s made clear this wasn’t just a photo opportunity. Whatever comes of “doing something” with ICP, they’ve already secured a spot in wrestling trivia that’s going to be very hard for anyone else to match.
