The Vince McMahon Era is, at the very least, reaching its end in the WWE, and that’s more than OK.
To be clear, Vince McMahon will stop being a part of the company when he can stop making money off of it or when he dies, whichever comes first. And if we’re being honest, that probably means he’s going to have some role with the WWE until he takes his last breath, since he’s managed to make WWE a highly profitable endeavor across several decades now.
Still, the signs are there that the days when every decision on the screen could be chalked up to Vince himself are seemingly behind us, at least to a degree. Where the company was once a battleground for massive men with more charisma than traditional wrestling skill, many of today’s top stars spent a bulk of their past wrestling in armories and smaller venues.
SummerSlam goes small
To see evidence that times are changing for the WWE, you need to look no further than the portion of the SummerSlam card that we already know about.
The first match announced is truly a “Vince McMahon Special.” Randy Orton is no small man, and he’s an older, established talent who came up through the WWE ranks as a sports entertainer. While his opponent, Brock Lesnar, certainly has a wrestling pedigree, he came straight to the WWE fold as a hulking brute who fit the mold Vince liked. What’s more, Lesnar is a sideshow these days and isn’t even a part of the regular product or the belt structure.
The rest of the matches, though, tell a different story. In the two top men’s title matches, the biggest competitor is Dean Ambrose at 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds, and Dolph Ziggler is the only one whose pro wrestling journey began in the WWE. The rest – Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor – had extensive careers on the independent circuit, and there’s a good chance that 20 years ago, we would’ve never seen any of them in a WWE ring.
Also, Roman Reigns – Vince’s golden boy that was rumored to be planned for the main event scene for the next several months, at least – has been left out of the top matches of the event so far. That probably has as much to do with his Wellness Policy violation as anything, but it’s hard to see Vince replacing Reigns with four smaller former Indy stars of his own accord.
Even the women’s match is something of a sign that Vince has turned over the reins. Sasha Banks is the Women’s Champion after months of the fans calling for her to get that shot. She’s certainly talented enough, but having her hold the belt heading into SummerSlam instead of leaving it on Charlotte seems like a clear play to what the fans want, and that’s hardly a Vince McMahon signature move.
Time to pass the torch
To be clear, this change is a very good thing. The WWE roster is as deep now as its ever been and that’s largely because of an infusion of talent from the indy ranks and other promotions – AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Ambrose, Rollins, Balor, Sami Zayn and the list goes on. What’s more, most of those guys are the type that might not have gotten a shot in decades past because they didn’t fit the mold.
If that talent is going to grow and develop to the point that WWE can really capitalize off its roster depth fully, those people are going to need to get top spots, the way they are at SummerSlam. That’s going to mean that older, larger, more prototypical talent is going to need to take a backseat, and that may not be able to happen if Vince is as hands-on as he once was.
Vince needs to continue to hand over the control to whoever is booking SummerSlam to this point because it’s a fresh, exciting card. Even Orton vs. Lesnar is a matchup we’ve never seen before and one that could set up something cool for WWE television for once, instead of being an outlier like Lesnar’s recent matches have been.
And the other men’s matches are true kingmakers. If Ambrose beats Ziggler, he solidifies himself further as a true champion for the WWE with a major show victory. If Ziggler wins, he completes the modern Grand Slam and would be just the seventh man to do so.
Rollins winning the Universal Championship is the expected move and one that truly helps him become the face of the company, but Balor pulling the upset would perhaps more fully capitalize on the depth of the roster and open up the storyline even further.
This is an exciting time for the WWE, and that may just be because Vince McMahon’s role in it is diminishing.
