Why Vince McMahon Has Lost Total Faith In Triple H

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The players of the RAW main event scene all debuted on WWE television before NXT was a game show, much less the template of the company's future. Over on SmackDown, Roman Reigns, Edge and Daniel Bryan are key to the WrestleMania picture. None of these men came up in the NXT system. Edge debuted in 1992. The WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match featured nobody that had debuted in the prior five years, and featured just one man who (re)entered the main roster via NXT. If you don't think there's a systemic issue with how WWE functions, you are wilfully ignorant at this point.

Meanwhile, entire "classes" of NXT talent have vanished, very conspicuously, in parallel. Keith Lee, reportedly not deemed "ready" by Vince McMahon, is nowhere to be seen. Aleister Black is done. Andrade is done. All three of these men are former NXT Champions, and Vince McMahon won't even beat them on Main Event. Bianca Belair is set for a big match at WrestleMania 37, and not to diminish that - she's so good that she pierced the soulless WWE veneer to elicit real emotion around her Royal Rumble victory - there was hardly a wealth of alternative options. Braun Strowman is a rare in-house Performance Center success story, a description that ages badly by the week, and is bound for a feature role in the Raymond James Stadium. But he does not embody Triple H's vision for the future.

He isn't the sort of performer Triple H would shake hands with for cool points or would promote in the front row of an old world TakeOver show.

CONT'D...(4 of 6)

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!