5 signs that Vince McMahon has lost touch with the WWE fans

Vince McMahon has been a pioneer in the professional wrestling business. When his father, Vince McMahon Sr. passed on the reins of the company to his son, he had no idea about the impact his son would have on the business.Breaking away from the old territorial system, thereby leading to the demise of some of the organizations which weren’t able to evolve with time, Vince McMahon Jr. managed to globalize his organization. With the “Rock ‘n’ Wrestling connection,” Vince was successful in going mainstream with the WWE, and was the undoubted numero uno of the industry.Vince laid waste to all his competitors – from the likes of Ted Turner, the billionaire mogul to Paul Heyman, the creative genius. In doing so, WWE became the biggest sports entertainment organization in the world.Vince also revealed the kayfabe aspect of professional wrestling, which was protected arduously by those in the business. In doing so, Vince broke the shackles of pro wrestling being confined to just the sporting world, and opened new doors for the industry and those involved in the business.But a lot has changed since. Most of the fans believe that Vince has lost touch with the fanbase, and with NXT being considered to be the ‘A show’ by many over the likes of RAW and Smackdown!, there is something wrong with how Vince is operating at the moment.Recently, Vince was on Steve Austin’s podcast, and discussed a variety of topics. In this article, we give you 5 things that indicate that Vince McMahon has lost touch with the WWE fans.

#1 The Cesaro conundrum

One of the things that stood out from the podcast was Vince’s opinions about Cesaro. When Austin asked Vince why a guy as talented as Cesaro wasn’t pushed or being given more air time, Vince said that Cesaro failed to get over with the fans, and knocked his verbal skills and his accent. He attributed it to Cesaro being European (Swiss), and said it would take time for Cesaro to get over with the WWE Universe.

The surprising thing however was that Cesaro was indeed over with the fans, but the nonsensical booking by the WWE creative team killed all of his momentum.

Remember Cesaro winning the Andre the Giant memorial battle royal at WrestleMania earlier this year? The next night when Heyman was introduced as his manager, the crowd erupted.

The fact that Cesaro was turned from heel to face and then back to heel, and face once again confused the fans, and killed off his momentum after his big win at WrestleMania. On top of that, Vince took away some of Cesaro’s moves from his arsenal, such as the UFO and the Cesaro Swing, as he didn’t want the moves to get over with the fans!

The fact that someone like Roman Reigns, who has zero mic skills and the charisma of an infant is being pushed to the moon by the WWE gives you an idea about how Vince likes to push guys who can be programmed from scratch, instead of guys like Cesaro who already are over with the fans. Indeed, NXT is now considered to be the place to be for all the talented performers, and the fans joke about the RAW superstars being “called up” to NXT!

#2 WWEs product being stale

Over the last 8 years, the fans have been clamoring for something new. Let us take the example of this week’s Monday Night RAW. In what was easily one of the worst episodes of RAW in the past few months, which in itself is quite commendable, since RAW is anything but interesting now, there were very few matches, and the first match itself was between John Cena and Seth Rollins.

The interesting thing about Rollins is, Vince thinks Seth has the potential to be the face of the company, but Seth can’t beat Cena even with the help of his cronies!

In professional wrestling, everything lies in the psychology. Whether it is the wrestling aspect of it or the storytelling, it is all about making the other performer look credible. If Seth can’t beat Cena even with two or three other guys, how does it lend credibility to him?

The answer is quite simple – it doesn’t. Vince McMahon, over the course of the past two decades, has replaced the storytelling and psychology with shenanigans and charades. The result is the fans turning on the product, but since there is no other alternative, the mainstream fans have no other option but to suffer the unintelligent and nonsensical product that the WWE puts on nowadays.

In the past decade, the ratings have slumped dramatically, and whether the WWE or the USA Network choose to acknowledge that fact or not, it is quite obvious that the WWE is going in the path of WCW during its final years.

#3 Vinces views on the part timers

Couple of years ago, WWE brought The Rock back to headline WrestleMania, which caused quite a stir in the locker room. While most of the talents remained silent, people like Punk and Dolph came forward and criticized Vince’s ideology. The next year, Rock once again headlined WrestleMania with the same opponent, but this time, he went into the mega event with the richest prize in the business – the WWE championship.

That wasn’t the last time a part timer became the WWE champion however, as the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lesnar, hasn’t been seen on WWE TV since the Night of Champions PPV till last week, when he made a surprise return to attack Chris Jericho, and later beat John Cena down.

On Austin’s podcast, Vince justified his decisions, saying people don’t want to see the likes of Lesnar or The Rock on every episode. While it makes sense to have a few marquee names make guest appearances, it doesn’t make any sense to put the title on performers who will be inactive for most part of the year.

Such decisions will not only lessen the credibility of the title, but it will also cause unrest among the talents. Punk, for example, revealed on his podcast with Colt Cabana that he asked Vince why he should drop the title to The Rock, and if Rock would work the live events instead of Punk.

Ziggler too expressed similar views previously and was in the dog house for more than a year for being vocal against the WWE machine.

#4 Vinces views about pro wrestling

“This is sports entertainment. Professional wrestling was what my father used to do”. Those were the words of Vince McMahon when Austin referred to the business as professional wrestling. It has always been evident that Vince hated the term “wrestling”, and always focused on getting into the entertainment genre. Vince McMahon expressed his belief that the WWE fans want entertainment, and as long as they see entertaining segments, it can always compensate for the lack of in – ring competition.

For over a decade, WWE has been revamping the women’s division, and has since termed it the Divas division, and started bringing in models with no prior wrestling experience, rather than those who’ve been plying their trade for years.

Vince always gave importance to superstars who were muscular over those who were athletic, leading to the now infamous “WWE type” standard, which usually means that a performer has to fit a certain criteria to become successful in the WWE.

Although there have been exceptions, Vince usually pushes the bigger guys – performers such as Ryback and Roman Reigns for example, fit in that category.

#5 The brass ring comment

One of the more note worthy comments from Vince during the podcast was his opinion that not every performer yearns to become the face of the company, and that a handful of performers reach for the proverbial brass ring. Vince name dropped the likes of Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt as the performers reaching for the brass ring, while it has been a fact that others such as Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler have always been reaching for the proverbial brass ring.

Vince’s comments have caused a stir in the locker room, with some of the talents joking about it on social media. When asked about the same during interviews, the performers have been tight lipped, and even Triple H dropped a reference to the comment in the aftermath of the recent NXT TakeOver: R – Evolution show.

While there are performers such as Ziggler, Ambrose and Rollins trying their hardest to climb the ladder, improving and polishing their skills, Vince and the WWE machine are going ahead with Roman Reigns as the next face of the company, which completely contradicts Vince’s statements.

With the fans recently chanting ‘Roman sucks’ and ‘boring’ during his match with The Big Show on RAW, the anti – Roman movement is slowly but surely developing, with the fans realizing that Roman Reigns is just another product of the WWE machine, similar to John Cena.