[Tom Guycott]

Late to this party, but...

Originally Posted by Frank Drebin How many years has Big E been on the roster?

Originally Posted by Luigi Long enough to the point where his chances of being a relevant draw for the company are slim to none. If the WWE are serious about creating the next break away star, they should be looking to nurture and grow their NXT talent. Braun Strowman and Jason Jordan should also be pushed and protected very heavily over these next 1-2 years.

One, you rode right past the gimmick joke to make that "stunning" observation.

Two, in said observation, you're talking about how both Braun and Porkchop Jones should be pushed and protected, yet he's been on the roster (counting NXT for both men) a bit longer than Big E. I believe Jason Jordan was around while both Vader's and Steamboat's kid was still there. Yet, somehow, Etor is beyond his sell-by date, yet Jason has another couple of years of cultivation? Hell, by that logic, WWE should have given up on Roman Reigns about 4 years ago, because he was in developmental when FCW was a thing.

You seem to miss the fact that quite a bit of who gets what push is kinda arbitrary. Baron Corbin blows, but he somehow ticks all of Vince's boxes, but Cesaro was a guy who, at one point, embodied exactly what they want Corbin to be - a tall, "larger than life" amoral asskicker (even when saddled with kinda shitty gimmicks) and even with the "shortcoming" of not being able to talk, he had one guy in his (metaphorical) corner once upon a when who COULD do the talking, and I don't mean Dutch, I mean Paul Heyman. But what happened? They let all that evaporate, most likely because him getting over wasn't part of whatever the hell creative was planning at the time.

And this has always been a thing; culminations of "having it" and "right place/right time". For example, if someone went back in a time machine during the height of Hulkamania and said that the less charismatic half of the Hart Foundation was going to be a future WWF Champion, one half of The Rockers would also be a future WWF Champion, and the two of them would end up in not only a legendary feud, and both be considered to of the all-time greats, but end up in one of the craziest events that changes the entire course of wrestling history, people would think out were totally outside of your mind because they are just some lower to midcard tag team guys.

"Austin 3:16" happened because HHH was arbitrarily punished (there was more happenstance in there, but I'm oversimplifying to get to my point), and had Hunter not been part of the curtain call, one of the biggest icons in merch and pop culture would have just been some midcard-at-best also-ran who people would have debates about how much more he potentially could have been if he were given half a chance, or possibly been more memorable if Hollywood Blondes just reformed in WWF... because they more than likely would have just booked him like a chump, and he'd have been losing to Road Dogg and Savio Vega on the regular.

Truth is you don't know what Big E has. Nobody does. And if WWE doesn't position him in any capacity to be more, nobody ever will know.

As far as that Wyatt Family pipe dream: that's another group of guys completely mishandled. Piss-poor booking took what was a fresh gimmick and potential "second coming" of Undertaker in Bray, and relegated him into a rambling joke jobber to the stars who is no kind of threat to anyone. Harper was the favored son; once again, a tall asskicker, but on his little singles jaunt, they didn't do anything of note with him. They seemed to expect Rowan to get a face run by osmosis by listing his eclecticism and hoping they could just sell a shit ton of sheep masks. In other words, he did even less than Harper, because at least Harper got a short singles title run. And Brawn? Did you *see* how long it took for them just to do something with the guy? He's EXACTLY what people think of when folks mention Vince's "big man fetish", and they still took forever to have him do anything of note besides squash jobbers and other people who weren't doing anything.

And they *did* feed Mark Henry, Big Show, and Kane to Braun already as a singles. And they still almost didn't follow up on that. Doing it again as some half-ass group would accomplish about as much as when they had Rusev go through the "proud American trio" (Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, and Zack Ryder) in at least three rotations, with Ryder sprinkled in there a couple of extra times... which is to say it won't accomplish squat.