11 Biggest Missteps On The Road To WrestleMania 38

10. Vince’s Involvement And Disappearing Act

It wasn’t long ago that Vince McMahon was thrust back onto television into his new role as a mumbling Crypt Keeper mentor to Austin Theory.

As baffling and silly as this role seemed, at least WWE was committed to the bit, to give Theory a proper rub by being Vince’s new protégé/henchman, right?

Wrong.

In recent weeks, McMahon has been name-dropped several times, but he’s disappeared from WWE programming. He hasn’t been seen with Theory as he had previously. Even in the wake of his appearance on Pat McAfee’s podcast, where he offered the announcer a match at Mania, we haven’t gotten a great (or really any) explanation of why Vince then booked his protégé against McAfee.

There actually was potential here for this rivalry to be something interesting by being Vince-adjacent, but now it’s just a supposed up-and-comer fighting an announcer who has just two NXT matches to his name. When you talk about dropped balls, this has to be right up there.