A little bit of nostalgia is never a bad thing. Enjoying again the things we did when we were kids or teenagers is always appealing, too much of it can get on the way of the future. This is what’s happening with WWE.
WWE has operated for a long time with the idea of using nostalgia by using stars of the past to get older fans to watch wrestling again. It works on the short term with a few weeks of ratings and merch selling numbers being up, but in the long term WWE is not creating new stars at the level of Austin.
If 2022 Vince McMahon was the booker in the Attitude Era, there’s a good chance he would’ve had Bruno Sammartino (64 in 1999) beat The Rock clean in the middle of the ring. It’s a crazy statement but a valid one.
WWE, and more especially Vince McMahon career about always thinking about the future. Like when he let Hogan and Savage go because he thought they were too old and decided to push Bret Hart, Michaels and others to top positions on the card.
WWE nowadays focuses too much on nostalgia, and gives the idea that to be a star in Vince’s eyes you need to be 40+. WWE not focusing on the future will come to bit them in the ass someday if they are not careful. Then again, WWE is now too big to fail at this point they don’t really need to think about tomorrow.
NXT should’ve been the pipeline for young talent for young talent but that didn’t happen, and NXT 2.0 works with a lot of green talent instead of the best wrestlers in world like it did before the 2.0 rebrand.
Ever since Austin and Rock eventually left WWE as full time members, Vince McMahon changed his philosophy and will not allow any wrestler to be as big as the WWE brand. That change in philosophy has led to WWE and Vince McMahon slowly becoming more and more reliant on the stars of the past.
