How WWE Killed The Superstar Babyface
And thus it became so. Vince McMahon would never again be under pressure to create a 'new' star because his old ones disappeared. No Luger in the wake of a Hogan, no Triple H and Triple H in the wake of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, and no anybody in the shadow of John Cena (and to a lesser extent, Dave Batista). He got an unintentional Cena clone in the form of Roman Reigns, but the disdain towards 'The Big Dog' is a preconditioned habit from an audience raised on a hero that never once had an entire crowd behind him. The WWE "Then. Now. Forever" ident appearing on the TitanTron at live shows gets as big a pop as anybody that walks down the ramp - the fans are there to contribute to "Universe"-building, not escape their lives engaging in the trials of their favourite heroes and hated villains.
It's when they try to contribute in a way they want that the entire product malfunctions. Bayley's appeal dissolved because scriptwriters couldn't channel an intangible. Sami Zayn did so much (and then so little) so quickly, that his perceived backstage charmlessness became a creative fire escape. Becky Lynch galvanised the audience more than current chosen one Charlotte Flair, so her justifiable anger had to become a slight against her rather than a character-building shift.
Others are ineffectively pushed in place of those names above because Vince McMahon wants it so, and as long as ticket-purchasing fans and cash-toting networks are buying 'WWE' months in advance of even knowing what they're getting, he's got little reason to think differently.
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