10 Times Vince McMahon Had Nothing To Do With WWE's Massive Success
1. NXT
Vince McMahon's legacy is a paradox befitting of the man himself. A genius who monopolised the wrestling business, he is also a man who has spent his existence repeating the same mistakes. Every headliner is a descendent of Hulk Hogan, despite the dire Diet Hogan track record. Several talents his audience wishes to see headline are buried underground - and he is somehow surprised by and resentful of the groundswell of support the likes of Daniel Bryan, Zack Ryder and Rusev receive.
He's even reviving the XFL, f*cking hell.
By the time WWE severed ties with OVW, the development league, sans Jim Cornette, had long since lost its lustre. The Class of 2002 was, ultimately, an aberration. Vince, following the Deep South Wrestling disaster, signed off on the Florida Championship Wrestling developmental reboot. It didn't work; where OVW actually ran shows and was ran by a dedicated wrestling mastermind, the FCW training facility was without running water for months. Vince, in weird retaliation, stigmatised the few genuine developmental prospects as goofs (on NXT) and John Cena victims (in the Nexus).
Mercifully, Triple H wrested the reins from the bumbling John Laurinaitis in a power play, knowing that the dope was messing with his inheritance.
NXT in 2018 is glorious: adopting a back-to-basics serious approach indebted to continuity, emotion and long-term storytelling craft, the payoff to which manifests as sublime wrestling matches, it is antithetical to Vince's vision - and all the better for it.