Why Vince McMahon Has Erased Triple H's Legacy

Scrolling through the WWE Network's NXT section (if you're even able to do that on Peacock, apologies from your UK-based writer, nervously awaiting the collapse of the service on this side of the Atlantic too...) is a sobering experience. It finds every iteration of the brand next to one another, ignorant to how strange the bedfellows appear even in thumbnail form.

The last several weeks of television belong with the last several years about as much as the episodes from 2010-2012 that set the industry back about 20 years.

That's not to say 2.0 should be held in the same contempt as the era defined by moustachioed greenhorns misidentifying their own faces, under-trained young women being cruelly buried by cynical old men, or the prize of leaving the brand being promised on a show that never had a finale. The current NXT might boast an air of impending catastrophe, but it's an innocent philosophical rethink at its core. It was a process change when one was absolutely needed, but the rebadging feels so totally chaotic that things look much worse than they actually are.

2.0's first few weeks felt fairly insane until you remembered who was at the wheel. Then, as if by sh*tty, sh*tty magic, it scanned as completely normal. Just another working day in the office that's had Jim Halpert's "0 Days Since Our Last Nonsense" board hung on the wall since 1982. Triple H's NXT - an imperfect and objectively failed model, remember - was a lot of things, but nonsensical wasn't typically one of them. The robust and logical gave way to stoic and stale over the years, but 2.0's frenzied vibe spoke to McMahon forcefully putting his name back above the door.

As noted, 'The Game' wasn't even there to fend off his Father-In-Law's invading forces, and maybe that's worth a little discussion for a second. It's not really happening elsewhere, is it?

CONT'D...