Vince McMahon's Plastic Action Figures

Watching Raw this week and seeing the great Brock Lesnar video package, it was even more apparent, as it is with his every appearance, why Brock Lesnar works so well in his role. He's completely real. You can believe that this is the authentic Brock, just with a camera on him. He's a dick. He doesn't give a fuck about you, me, or anyone else. He's superb in his role, more convincing than just about everybody else in WWE by a country mile.

WWE's biggest problem is not being "PG", it's not a lack of talent or potential stars. It's not even the overexposure of TV content or the need to shill the Network. It's the fact that very few guys on WWE TV are actually cool. Why? Because WWE's tendency to force it's stars to be one-dimensional caricatures has never been worse.

Sheamus is a great example. A good worker, certainly, but if you've seen one match or heard one promo, you feel like you've seen everything he can do. WWE doesn't like to give anybody too much depth, but if a new fan asked you to tell him something about this Sheamus guy, what would you say? He's Irish? That's fuckin' captivating. That's not to say that's all Sheamus has to offer, he might be capable of more, but you'd never know. Sheamus never really took as a top guy despite a huge push in 2012, and he didn't show that he was really good enough or had the transcendent charisma to succeed regardless. Scripting is one thing, but the way the guys are scripted is sculpting them in plastic, forcing them into an unnatural mould.

Roman Reigns is about to get the megapush. But all they know how to do is the Sheamus push. The Diesel push. The push of so many guys who never really took at the top - strip away anything other than a look, a tagline, the most generic verbiage imaginable, and have them win all the time and hope for the best. Sometimes that works if they have something unique about themselves, a flavour that just clicks. But they've already started this direction with Reigns, between being smashed over the majority of the time (which is fine) and his "Assess and Attack" promos that couldn't be more bland if they were cut by Bob Backlund in 1993 (which are not). It's going to doom him when it comes time to take the throne, barring a drastic turnaround or change in philosophy, because the fans will inevitably ask themselves why they love him, and they're not going to have enough answers to justify spending their money. Again, at the WWE 2K15 Roster Announcement show on Summerslam weekend, Reigns showed he has far more personality and a good natural charisma, that you'd never know he has by watching Raw every week.

Bray Wyatt and the recently fired Alberto Del Rio both had the same issue when coming into WWE - a brilliant introduction with a hot character that seemed like it has a ton of potential to do great, interesting things. But the character never actually gets out of first gear. They never evolve, those characters don't actually do anything interesting or unique (or "Creative") after stage one. They just show up and do what everybody else does and before long, they become another flower in the garden, and never change. Eventually flowers like that start to smell pretty putrid.

Look at Dean Ambrose, and ask yourself why he's been getting crowd reactions far beyond the level of his push. The answer is because he's himself, and unlike almost everybody else in the entire company, he's fucking cool. Everything he says fits him, he feels different, and this angle with Seth Rollins allows him to act how his character should. He's doing the kind of whacky antics you'd hope an erratic guy like him could do - hiding in the boot of a car to get at people, throwing an ice bucket in Seth Rollins' face and brawling with him out of nowhere. There is actually something to sink your teeth into, and you want to see what he'll do next because this character, unlike Bray Wyatt, ACTUALLY DOES INTERESTING THINGS. And even if he is scripted, he's good enough to not let it typecast him in a one-dimensional manner.

The underlying theme here is that the WWE desperately needs to let the guys be themselves, rather than washing away the idiosyncrasies that makes any great character in the history of any medium special. Let them be more hands-on, to get involved in ideas for their character, to speak with their own voice, pitch their own angles and try their own things.

The nature of WWE Creative is to take that out of the talent's hands to give the company more control. If a talent tries something and fails, then he may fall short and fuck up future company plans if he sinks instead of swims on his own volition. You can also take a guy who may not be able to cut promos or come up with dialogue and put the words in his mouth. Those type of guys do need scripting.

But by taking that ability away, not only are you preventing failure, you're hindering potential success. In 1997, with WCW kicking the shit out the WWF, Vince held a meeting and told the guys that he was going to, within reason, hand the reigns of people's characters over to themselves, because they knew what they needed to be. But today, with nobody succeeding at his expense, even if the product is colder than a polar bear's dick, they'll stay this course. Wrestling is at its best, and its most popular, when the stars on the show are cool. When you as a fan want to feed of that magnetism.

There is not that much cool or interesting about modern WWE to the male audience, and how could there be? How can a person be told how to act by a team of over a dozen people and come off as anything other than one of Vince McMahon's personal action figures instead of an individual who knows exactly who and what he is, to the point you've got to tune in and see him?

Maybe I'm being too hard on WWE. Maybe these guys like Sheamus, Del Rio, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger and Big E don't have enough about them, deep-down, to be top guys. Not everybody does. Not everybody has that special personality. I don't believe Seth Rollins has the personality to be a top guy, and even during the height of his popularity earlier this year, I was among the few to say that Cesaro never showed the ability to connect at a main event level.

But you'd got some guys on the horizon that can make a difference. Dean Ambrose is on his way. Roman Reigns has real potential, but they're forcing him into the same path as those before him. Bray Wyatt should still be a big deal, but they don't have any idea what to do with him. Luke Harper is interesting and could be a psycho killer if they had the balls.

But the fans will always compare the current generation unfavourably to stars from the past, if these guys don't have to chance to be themselves. The guys from the past did. And in many cases, that's exactly why they were stars to begin with.