>>16908705Agreed. HHH's creative direction after WM40 required a severely limited performer like Solo to serve as their top heel for most of the year. Solo couldn't convincingly portray a monster mob boss, so hours of programming meant to present him as one were wasted. Aside from the pop generated by Roman's return and assault upon Solo at Summerslam, the whole Bloodline civil war storyline was a dud.
You're right to pin the blame on HHH instead of Solo, who was clearly too inexperienced to handle the role Creative forced him to play. The fact that he was instantly outshined and rendered an afterthought in his own stable the moment Fatu debuted made this all the more apparent. The failure of HHH and his writers to figure out a way to meaningfully involve Solo in this year's Rumble shows that they lack creativity. Vince would've had the sense to change plans well before Summerslam. He would have recognized that Solo wasn't getting over as a top heel and then shaped the storylines to better accord with whoever the fans were responding to at the time. I haven't seen HHH demonstrate a similar instinct since Vince was ousted.