Maybe Triple H was never impressed with him.He pretty much runs things these days.
I wasn't impressed with him either. He was just their brightest home grown but didn't appear much different then say Jericho/RVD/Eddie guerrillas etc....and we all know those fall as mid card nowadays, not headliners.
Plus WWE doesn't acknowledge wrestlers pasts...only flair and sting and Brock ufc..all for promotional purpose to help their stock. The rest they act like their past doesn't exist. They're not gonna bring a 11 year TNA vet over and have the crowd going wild while pretending they're "new"
same can be said about tons of wrestlers they do pick up though
but I guess they didn't see that "it" factor in him
They recently signed Samoa Joe who has just as much tenure pre WWE and I wasn't saying that Styles was an upstart,I was referring to the youngsters that they do sign, but he could have been seen as such five years ago when he was TNA champ.
WWE does not publicly acknowledge the background of wrestlers that they sign but they do notice the buzz that those wrestlers have created and they sure have no problem signing them away from other organizations...sometimes just to have them "locked in".