Does Vince McMahon Even Pay Attention To WWE NXT?

Authors of Pain

Photo Credit: WWE.com

Finally we get to the Authors of Pain. When AOP first debuted, I had high hopes for them. With the Raw tag team division where it is right now, I figured AOP would be shot right to the top. Unfortunately, that did not happen. AOP debuted by defeating local competitors, and then dumping their manager Paul Ellering. After that, they just kind of disappeared. Like, for months. Finally they came back on Raw just last week and defeated more local competitors.

Again, the Authors of Pain obviously have not been ruined or buried or anything like that, they’ve just been lost. This is what happens though when you debut someone without having a plan for them. With the landscape of the Raw tag division right now, it was a prime time for the Authors of Pain to quickly climb the ranks and begin challenging Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy sooner rather than later. However, now they’ve stumbled out of the gate and have a lot of ground to make up to be able to get to that position.

Now, with those four examples of recent call ups, let’s get back to the question at hand; does Vince McMahon watch NXT? Clearly, the answer is no. I’m sure Vince has people in his ear who inform him of NXT, and what guys are ready to be called up and things like that, but as far as watching NXT himself, and being able to understand these characters before being called up, it just doesn’t happen.

By Vince not watching NXT, it is what causes this sort of stand-still for a lot of talent that get called up with no real plan of anything. Vince will call them up, and then decide what to do with them as they go along, which makes it hard to get invested in these characters straight away. The very simple solution for this is to have a story line in mind right away for someone who gets called up. “How can we get people invested in this character straight away?” should be the question being asked in creative meetings.

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Look at a guy like a Finn Balor. Finn debuted by becoming the number one contender to the Universal Championship by winning a fatal four way match, and then beating Roman Reigns clean in a one on one match. Obviously, you can’t sky rocket everyone like that straight away, but you can give everyone a since of what direction they’re going in straight away.

To close this out, it really does say a lot that of all the examples I just gave, No Way Jose has been used more than all of them.