10 Real Reasons Why Wrestling Fans Never Get What They Want
4. The LA Knight Mega-Push
LA Knight, drenched in as much confidence as charisma, is massively over with the WWE audience.
If it was all about a shallow call-and-response that is very, very fun to say aloud - the word "Yes" has long since been replaced, permanently, by "Yeah-uh!" in the WhatCulture Wrestling office - fans would have grown tired by now. It isn't; just because he isn't a star on the level of the Rock or Steve Austin, doesn't mean he's not a true star.
So why hasn't WWE gone all in on him? Wasn't that sort of thing more common under Vince?
It's a combination of things.
It an interview with MailSport, Knight himself acknowledged that, no matter the hypocrisy - current Money In The Bank briefcase holder Damian Priest is 40 - he was considered too old to be a top star under the old regime, hence why he managed as Max Dupri. "Some things happened that we don’t need to go into," Knight said.
But is "the old regime" accurate?
There's a key difference between, say, putting Tommaso Ciampa in a midcard slot and putting someone Vince McMahon doesn't rate at the very top of the marquee. Vince is allowing Triple H a great deal of control, but there are limits to that for which no tinfoil hat is required.
Knight isn't a great in-ring worker, and while that is no longer of the utmost importance to WWE's new melodrama-heavy direction, it's still a big factor in these sorts of decisions - as is the idea that Cody Rhodes is the man going forward, and it's not a great idea to threaten that fact, and the huge marketing expense that comes with it, to go all in on the Knight push at the same time.
In WWE history, with the way the company operates, there is always one - and that one isn't Knight.