Someone had to be the scapegoat for NXT, the darling fed of the smarks failing against AEW and it's sports entertainment clusterfuck.
Adam Cole basically was never going to be blamed, since that would mean acknowledging the garbage nature of the Undisputed Era clique.
Tomasso DID get blamed (with Johnny) but rather than acknowledge he wasn't what normies wanted in a wrestler, doubled down and tripled down on it and was rewarded with a main roster slot and a high profile gig as Miz's henchman by dumb luck.
That leaves Johnny, who isn't politically connected (The Bucks and Omega DESPISE AND HATE Gargano, for cucking their BFF Joey Ryan) and worse, took criticism of him to heart and went about trying to create a character/personality to make people like him. Worse, it was a personality/persona that mocked the sort of workrate obsessed smark types as far as Johnny portraying a cult leader and being portrayed as a big ego, small name type egomaniac.
The final straw for the smarks, was Johnny consciously aligning himself backstage with Dexter Lumis; becoming partners and creating a double act with him. Meltzer DESPISES Dexter, Alvarez hates Dexter out of pure jealousy due to Sam Shaw having a long career in wrestling while Alvarez was a complete and total flop as a wrestler and had to become a guy who talks about wrestling, Cornette hates it because he wants Dexter to be an evil fuckboy heel and bully Gargano as opposed to being pals with him, and the rest of the smark community don't like Dexter because he exposed Gargano, Cole, and Ciampa as frauds by mogging them and getting over without mispronouncing "baby" and pandering to Meltzer.
