10 Reasons WWE Is Incapable Of Creating New Main Event Stars

2. Vince McMahon Is Out Of Touch

That statement is not strictly true - WWE, slowly, is attempting to reconcile its fragmented audience by offering each division of it something for their taste - but the flagship brand is stuttering because it is the one Vince McMahon micromanages within an inch of its life.

Roman Reigns represents what McMahon thinks a sports entertainer should look like: chiselled, handsome, fit for the marquee. He also performs in McMahon's preferred mode: selling incongruously after an opening barrage, his predictable comebacks are designed to elicit hope within his young fanbase, yet the older crowd is painfully aware of the routine. The dissonance is deafening.

That mode, to the weary, is passé. The world has shrunk; fans, through the internet, are aware of wrestling's heterogenous history and present - and are are fearful of the future McMahon insists on shaping in his own image. The fallback WWE style is one they have rejected for a decade. Reigns as foremost practitioner is a victim of it - but his push continues, unabated.

Reigns might not even turn heel in his feud with the Undertaker. WWE plans on having him go against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34. Against all conventional wisdom, it seems McMahon is pressing on with the idea of getting Reigns over via endorsement.

It didn't work at Royal Rumble 2015, when The Rock helped him clean house. It didn't work at Fastlane the next month, when Daniel Bryan put him over. It's not going to work when he retires the Undertaker at WrestleMania.