Unpopular Opinion: Vince McMahon has an old school ideology of his superstars
Disclaimer: This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily of Sportskeeda's
Vincent Kennedy McMahon has owned the WWF/E since he purchased it from his father in 1984. The company has grown exponentially since he originally took over and has gone from being one of several territory promotions to branching out on its own and becoming the globally wide phenomenon that it today.
Along the way, WWE has taken over as the most well-known pro-wrestling company in the world. McMahon has effectively bought out a lot of the competition that WWE ever had and squashed the life out of it such as it's biggest competition in WCW and ECW back in 2001.
During a lot of the purchases of other companies by McMahon, WWE acquired a who's who of talent that chose to join the company. Some of them went on to be successful while various others have been buried and made to look like a joke because they did not fit the mold that Vince looks for in his superstars.
Vince has been under the impression ever since he took over from his father that WWE should always have bigger superstars as champions (superstars that are tall and well built over 250 pounds).
Superstars that are built at a bigger weight and height are going to be less versatile and interesting to watch in the ring, ( Hulk Hogan, Yokozuna etc ). Whilst they might have been a big drawback in the '70s and early '80s, the dynamics of wrestling have shifted these days meaning that no longer are big men necessarily required to be heavyweight champion.
You look at WWE Superstars these days and realise that they have so much different variety of talent, yet it's only a select few guys like Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar and a few others that are ever considered as top champion because apparently, they seem to fit what Vince desires to be the top guy to represent the company.
We have seen for the last four years how Vince tried to put Roman over with us and it was never received well. Sure, he's a hard-working superstar and deserves to be near the top, but he could share the load with heaps of other guys. The two things that Roman has wrong with him is he has an extremely limited move set and the inability to connect with the crowd.
Vince has given the smaller guys more of an opportunity over the last decade, but it should have come at a much sooner time because they are the hardest working Superstars. They have a wider variety of moves and can all put on a believable match with any opponent of any size if given the right opportunity.
A lot of these guys are extremely popular with the WWE Universe because of their wide variety of moves and the ability of the wow factor for the crowd.
While it is good to have an underdog storyline in the business once in a while, more of the smaller and underutilized talent should be given more of an opportunity as main event stars. If you look at how popular guys like Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, and Dolph Ziggler are, then you definitely know that you were going to get a main event calibre match out of them.
They don't always have to be portrayed as underdogs fighting the machine, not when their performances steal the show every night and pretty much outdo all the matches the guys over 280 lbs have with each other.
The matches they produce against each other or against a slightly bigger opponent who can have a decent match should be a match contested for the top prizes in the business and not saved for mid-card titles all the time.
After all, isn't the sole focus supposed to be on the top prize of the business instead of allowing a guy who is more into MMA nowadays, hold the top prize of Monday Night Raw hostage with his limited move set, lack of respect for the business and carefree money demanding attitude?
Brock Lesnar has seriously destroyed the main event scene of the WWE, as he has only challenged people he thinks are worthy of being his opponents and only shows up if the money is the right price for him once every few months with the title belt being held hostage.
It would be very interesting to know why Vince McMahon does not believe somebody like Seth Rollins or Finn Balor could not put on a match believable enough to beat Brock Lesnar. Brock has proven that he works better with smaller opponents and he puts in more of an effort with the smaller guys, which proves that they are the true people that should be the champions of this business.
Interestingly enough, it has made the main event scene virtually non-existent, with the combined reign of Lesnar's title runs as they have not needed to present anybody else as a threat to him other than Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns. These three behemoths have battled it out for the last year over the Universal Championship without any fresh faces in the picture, that might be able to carry Brock to a good wrestling match.
Seeing the same faces revolve around the main event scene on Raw has made the product rather stale. It was proven at both Survivor Series over last year and the year before with AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan that smaller opponents can have a good, believable match with Brock and it could be for the Universal Championship if Vince allowed them, instead of his usual big behemoths.
The new era in WWE has promised change and let's hope that one of these changes is more opportunity for the underutilized guys in the main event scene that are also seen as underdogs and not the stereotypical, Vince McMahon looks for a main eventer.
It has been proven all over the world that you don't need a large person to constantly carry the top prize when the smaller opponents do an equally awesome if not better job then their larger counterparts (e.g. Kenny Omega). All it takes is a bit of belief and faith from the management in these superstars to be able to carry the top prize and know that they can have truly awe-inspiring matches. They can be big draws for the company.
The best that we can do at the moment is sit and hope that WWE continues with this push, and we can move past the dark stage that they've been in with part-time champions and playing favourites with selected superstars.
WWE is starting to get competitive with All Elite Wrestling so it makes it or break it time for the company, with several superstars already unhappy even though there has been change. It's going to be interesting times ahead.