3. He Is The Face Of A Failed Experiment
Now regardless of your own opinions about the brand extension, it was a bold experiment. In the aftermath that was the Monday Night Wars it seemed logical to split the sole remaining company into two different entities in absence of any real competition. If it was done correctly the possibilities could have been endless. Although my opinions on this topic are for another time I ask you, just think of what could've possibly come out of this? Vince had an opportunity to create two completely separate corporate affiliates with their own identity AND sources for revenue. I completely understand what they were trying to achieve. But alas, thanks to some rather questionable corporate decisions, it failed. And it failed miserably. The brand extension that was RAW and Smackdown (and later ECW) has become one of pro wrestling history's biggest blunders. It is the quintessential moment in a lot of fans eyes of when the company and their product went down the drain. It was seemingly the general consensus of the viewing public as well outside the usual demographic as literally millions of viewers turned off and the WWE went into a ratings decline which to this day it has yet to recover from. And when you look at the entire history of the brand extension there were two constants. Triple H and John Cena. These two in my eyes are the faces of an industry experiment deemed a complete failure. And when people tune into the current (and significantly better) product nowadays and see his smiling face, they are reminded as to why they tuned out in the first place. As long as people see him as the epitome of every reason why they stopped watching, how exactly do you expect them to trust you when you say the product has improved post brand extension era? Which funnily enough is a nice little segueway into my next point.