10 Ways WWE In 2017 Could Have Been COMPLETELY Different
7. Somebody Else's Guy
Jinder Mahal was the personal choice of Vince McMahon to take the fast-track from the outhouse to the penthouse in May, but what if vascularity and localisation weren't the primary rationales for a megapush?
WWE persistently fosters a roster chock-full of talents patiently waiting for an opportunity on the outside but feverish to receive it on the inside. It's a far cry from the ultra-heated days of the Attitude Era, where Head Of Talent Relations Jim Ross hired then nurtured a line-up of dogged and determined super-athletes desperate for the top spot. Bob Holly's p*ss funny 'HOW 'BOUT YOU GIVE ME THE BELT...AND THEN I BEAT EVERYBODY' booking idea in a locker room housing The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin emphasised the ardent self-belief and confidence it took to hang in the company's most competitive era.
McMahon castigating his young crop as 'millennials' on a 2014 Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast was a near-the-knuckle dig at the lot of them, but underboss Triple H presumably knew the...erm...pedigree of countless other alternatives when McMahon forged ahead with Jinder.
Might a similar marketing surge underneath Sami Zayn, Luke Harper or Mojo Rawley have yielded greater results than Mahal? We'll never know, and thanks to the failings of 2017's Plan A, it'll be a while before we get a chance to test the theory again.