The Quote That Sums Up WWE's Problem Perfectly

Dexter Lumis is currently playing a methodical stalker capable, apparently, of astonishing athletic feats that are designed to mystify his opponents and pop crowds. All pandemic wrestling is untenable in that last regard, but the failure of the Lumis character is even more stark. In a bid to get this over, Lumis was instructed to vault over the top rope à la Ricochet, when Ricochet is literally presented as an athlete like no other, and he injured his ankle in the process. Because Dexter Lumis isn't Ricochet. But Lumis' inability to execute the high spots beloved by NXT was considered, yes, a gap to fill.

Timothy Thatcher isn't a great talker nor a jump-off-the-screen TV presence, but exposition is a very important part of a system that deems you stupid, and so his gaps are filled with drab and long Thatch-As-Thatch-Can segments, the very name of which undermines Thatcher's aura as a legitimate no-nonsense killer. This is a submission specialist who is essentially teaching his opponents the key to defeating him on an international platform. It's boring, dumb, irrelevant television.

In many cases, the NXT system actively diminishes the talent recruited from the indies or positions them in roles in which they do well, but at which they don't excel (Storm et al.). The big dream - of signing hulking athletic specimens and training them from scratch to be megastar entertainers on national television - is all but dead. Only Charlotte Flair and Braun Strowman (and to a lesser extent American Alpha) have starred on the main roster having entered the system with no prior industry experience. Reduced, gauging by the years active to stars developed ratio, the WWE Performance Center is more of a middling wrestling school than a star-making factory.

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