Is Triple H the Savior of WWE?

[The Law]

So Triple H took over his executive position in WWE about two years ago, right around Wrestlemania 27. Since then, we've gotten bits and pieces of his wrestling philosophy based on reports and conjecture from changes made to the program since then. To me, most of the changes he's made and things he supports seem to be pretty awesome, and I feel like most fans of my ilk agree. A review of his major initiatives:

-Forced creative to have long-term plans for new wrestlers before they were allowed to call them up. Also seems to be doing a good job of not calling people up before they are ready.

-Directed NXT to stop scripting promos for their guys and instead make them come up with their own stuff.

-Started signing women who could actually wrestle instead of lingere models. Fuck you, Johnny Ace.

-Was and is a huge proponent and backer of The Shield.

-Is a proponent of long title runs, which has certainly shown in the last few years.

-Brought back vignettes for debuting wrestlers and has generally had creative spend weeks and weeks building up their debuts.

-Is a fan of old-school southern wrestling. Trademarks of southern wrestling: long, intense feuds. Long title reigns. Heels generally being the center of the show and coming out on top of the faces more often than not. Kayfabe being sacred and strictly enforced. Greater emphasis on in-ring action than in northern wrestling, which traditionally focused more on stories and personalities.

-Wants Vince to bring back WarGames.

So yeah, that all sounds awesome. Is Triple H going to save WWE? And how ironic is it that the bane of every internet smart mark's existence turns out to have the same wrestling philosophy as most smarks?

[Kev]

He still should have jobbed to Jericho clean ffs

[Bill Casey]

-Is a fan of old-school southern wrestling. Trademarks of southern wrestling: long, intense feuds. Long title reigns. Heels generally being the center of the show and coming out on top of the faces more often than not.

Think about this one for a minute...
It might give you a new perspective on HHH...

[mr sabu]

isn't brock a heel....... naaaa can't be he hasn't won very often

[Defrost]

The answer to this question is the same answer as to whether or not he will fire his wife.

[chatty]

Whoever sorts the NXT stuff has done a sterling job.

other than Bo

thats all I'll say. WWE in 2013 isn't much differnt from WWE in 2011 imo

[OD50]

Patience young Padawan. Not until the current Emperor steps down (or get's thrown down a shaft..) will we see true change in the republic.

[Kyle_242]

If the recent WM buyrate is true (and I pray to god that it isn't), the WWE is in no need of saving.

You have no idea how conflicted I get when numbers work against me.

[Atty]

Yeah, it's had when I work against you.

[Kimura Kid]

the bane of every internet smart mark's existence

What does this mean? Smarks Dislike HHH? Why?

Please don't tell me people think he's trash.

[Cewsh]

Smarks have hated Triple H for over a decade. It's a combination of him being a dominant presence on television and a whole bunch of unflattering dirt sheet reports that have never been proven or supported in any way. The belief in 2000-2001 or so was that Triple H was holding down talent like Chris Jericho, whether that was the case or not. And for some reason people just held onto this bizarre hatred of the man all this time.

Seriously, if Chris Jericho were doing all of these things for WWE backstage, there would be a line around the block leading to his house of smarks ready to blow him. The fact that Triple H tends to get a "Huh? Really? Well maybe he'll be good for WWE after all" after like 36 amazing decisions in a row tells you all you need to know.

[Ringo]

And he's an awful wrestler too!

4/10 in fact.

[turdpower]

What does this mean? Smarks Dislike HHH? Why?

Please don't tell me people think he's trash.

Is this a joke?

I think everyone on the internet hated HHH from around 2003 onwards.

I fucking love him though.

[Kimura Kid]

I think HHH is one of the greatest talents in wrestling!!

He is the total package! Great Look, Great on the Mic, Great Wrestler & a deep love for wrestling...One of the most passionette guys ever!!

Around the time I stopped watching wrestling stupid fucking people were saying that the only reason he got where he is was mainly due to his marriage to Steph. How fucking stupid is that.

HHH is the fucking man!! If people cannot see him for the talent he is then I don't know what to tell you. For people that are unhappy with the decisions he made backstage right or Wrong agree or disagree have gotten him to the position he's in now. And you aren't always gonna agree with backstage politics or the decisions that are made. The wrestling business is cut throat and full of guys looking to take your spot. Seems to me like HHH always was looking out for #1

Can you blame him?

The guy got fucking burried for the Cliq Incident and is in the most powerful positions any active wrestler has ever been in.

How did that happen?

[Andy]

I think everyone everywhere hated him in 2003-2005. Fucking boring time that was for Raw.

[JT4104]

I couldn't stand HHH for a long time as i felt he had the untouchable aura around him forever. Never felt like he was ever in danger of losing a fued or a high profile match.

After a while though, he doesn't bother me and at this point in his career he is rather entertaining. (though I am still bothered by him going over Punk for no good reason at NOC.)

[turdpower]

Always loved him.

He's fucking great. The stuff with Steiner was horrible though.

[kdestiny]

Didn't mind Triple H much.

I do feel he is doing some great work right now that he has the reigns. He has a good wrestling mind and its great that he is still mixing in some old school factors in today's day in wrestling. Good to hear he won't call anyone up unless there is a long term plan for them, good for him.

[The Law]

Okay, so I didn't intend for this to be so long, but this is my brief in the case of Triple H vs. The Internet Smart Marks detailing the long and complex history:

I believe the Triple H hate began in 2002. He came back from his injury and sucked in the ring. He had a terrible feud with Jericho going into Wrestlemania 18 and beat him in a match that was poorly received by the crowd. This is where the allegations that he was being favored due to his relationship with Stephanie. Everyone (correctly) thought that Rock and Hogan should have gone on last. Triple H proceeded to wrestle a terrible match with Hogan at Backlash, then beat Jericho in a pretty dull Hell in a Cell match at Judgment Day. He wrestled another stinker with Undertaker at King of the Ring 2002. After his awesome match with Michaels at Summerslam he was awarded the World Heavyweight Championship (this upset the smarts. Of course, that was the point). He proceeded to beat RVD, an internet darling, and then beat Kane at No Mercy after the horrific Katie Vick angle. I assume people were upset when he won the WHC back from Michaels at Armageddon 2002 after Shawn had only had the title for a few weeks, but it was Shawn's call to not be a long-term champion.

Then came the terrible matches with Scott Steiner. Once again, people said he buried Steiner. In this case, he was guilty of overconfidence in his abilities in the ring-thinking he could carry Steiner, who hadn't wrestled in almost two years, to a good 20 minute match. Somehow, no one ever blamed Steiner for being terribly out of shape and botching a bunch of moves.

Then comes a legitimate grievance: He really fucked over Booker T. Booker was really hot in early 2003. They gave Booker a shot at the title at Wrestlemania. During the feud, Triple H made some insensitive racial comments ("people like you can't be champion," "you're an entertainer, not a wrestler," throwing a dollar on the floor in front of him and asking him to get a towel for him). He also ran down Booker's WCW Championship reigns as meaningless, said Booker wasn't worthy of being a champion. The race stuff was out of line, but the rest of it was pretty typical heel work. All fine up until Booker lost at Wrestlemania. And he lost in a way that made him look horribly weak: being Pedigreed while the referee was unconscious and then being pinned after the referee was down for a solid 30 seconds. Rumor was that HHH was supposed to drop the title but then they changed their mind when they signed Goldberg. The logic was that Goldberg needed a heel champion to chase and it would be a bigger deal if Goldberg ended a long title reign.

So after Wrestlemania Booker gets cast aside so Triple H could feud with his friend Kevin Nash. The matches were about the quality you would expect, the feud was boring. Once again, people accused HHH of favoring his friend over Booker, who was more deserving.

So Summerslam comes along, and Triple H is finally going to drop the title to Goldberg. Then HHH suffers and injury and they change it to an Elimination Chamber match. Okay, no big deal. So Goldberg destroys everyone and then...Triple H pins him after a sledgehammer shot. That pissed everyone off royally. No one beats Goldberg. That's his thing. Once he gets beat, no one gives a shit about him. That was Goldberg's first pinfall loss in WWE. The logic here was that Goldberg should beat Triple H in a one-on-one match to win the title. Bad decision. The crowd was super into Goldberg that night. Him losing just made him look like a bitch.

So Triple H did in fact end up dropping the title to Goldberg at Unforgiven. He then took some time off to heal injuries. While he was gone, they ran an angle where he put a bounty on Goldberg-$100,000 to anyone who could take him out. I thought this was an awesome storyline, but the smarts got upset because they saw it as Triple H continuing to be at the center of storylines even when he wasn't on TV. One of the dumber complaints, and one that faded with time.

So Triple H returned after Batista took out Goldberg and claimed the bounty. Then he faced Goldberg at Survivor Series. A lot of the smarts wanted to see Batista vs. Goldberg instead. Bad idea, because A) Someone would have had to lose and B) Batista definitely wasn't capable of having a main event match on PPV at this point. There's a reason all he did was tag with Flair for the next year.

Then Triple H pinned Goldberg to win back the title in a Triple Threat at Armageddon. It was a clean pin, and no one was happy. On one hand, Golberg was clearly on his way out of the company. On the other hand, Goldberg doesn't fucking lose. Also, the alternative of Triple H pinning Kane wouldn't have been much better. Also on this night: Randy Orton won the Intercontinental Title and Flair and Batista won the tag titles, so Evolution now held all of Raw's titles. Smarts complained that Evolution was monopolizing the titles, which was, of course, literally true.

After this Shawn and Triple H wrestled a Last Man Standing Match that lots of smarts didn't like. I'm not a huge fan of it either. Then Chris Benoit won the Royal Rumble and challenged Triple H for the WHC at Wrestlemania. But they added Shawn to the match. Once again, people complained that HHH was favoring his friend. In reality, the move was logical because A) They were concerned that Benoit, who had wrestled very few main events, could sell Wrestlemania and B) There wasn't really anything else for Shawn to do at the show. Anyway, Triple H tapped out clean to Benoit and the smarts rejoiced.

Then Benoit's title reign was overshadowed by Triple H and Shawn's ongoing feud. Triple H and Shawn main evented Bad Blood while Benoit wrestled Kane in the midcard. Then Triple H got to fight Benoit at Vengeance instead of someone new getting into the title scene.

The smarts next big complaint, and a pretty legitimate one, involved HHH beating Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship only a month after Orton won it. Objectively, this was pretty bad booking. I understand the concept of having Orton chase HHH, but Orton was already champion. Having him immediately lose the title cost him his momentum and made him look like shit. As a result, Orton lost all of his heat and never got the title back from HHH, which was the reason he lost the title in the first place.

After that, Triple H repeatedly jobbed to Batista and then went away for several months. When he returned, he stayed out of the title scene for awhile. This was a period of detente between the smarts and Triple H. Then came the feud with Cena, which upset the smarts because A) They wanted to see Cena vs. Edge as the main event of Wrestlemania 22 and B) They thought Triple H went too far ripping Cena going into the match. I'm inclined to agree with the second criticism. Triple H saying Cena couldn't wrestle and that his big move was "pumping up his Nikes" didn't really benefit anyone. Cena had been champion for almost an entire year at that point, so it probably would have made more sense to put him over as a great champion who needed to prove himself against Triple H. Cena beat Triple H clean in the main event and the smarts... I don't really know, because they didn't really like either guy.

Then came the universally reviled DX reunion and feud with the Spirit Squad and the McMahons. This was terrible, horrible, and awful. DX totally buried the Spirit Squad, but I don't care about that because they were a group of male cheerleaders and that gimmick had no future. Somehow, that burying hasn't stopped Dolph Ziggler from becoming world champion (albeit years later).

Then he tore his quad again. I feel like another period of detente between him and the smarts ensued. He stayed out of the title picture for awhile, other than winning the title at No Mercy 2007 and then losing it back to Orton later that night. He took the title from Orton at Backlash 2008 and then beat him twice more after that. He then moved to Smackdown, which surprised pretty much everyone. No one really minded him being a longterm champion on Smackdown.

Then came the Orton match at Wrestlemania 25. I side with the smarts here: beating Orton sucked and cost Orton his heat and momentum. He should have just jobbed the title to him, considering he lost it the next month anyway. Also, they shouldn't have gone on last. Somehow he didn't learn at all from his mistake at Wrestlemania 18, which goes to a legitimate criticism of HHH: He's too confident in his in-ring abilities. He tries to do things he's not capable of, liking waking up a crowd that's worn out after one of the greatest matches ever.

Once again, Detente ensued as HHH and Michaels spent the next few months feuding with Legacy and JeriShow. There were some complaints that he and Michaels main evented Hell in a Cell and TLC. I didn't really care. I thought they put Legacy over huge and that the JeriShow match was good. This is also about the time that Survivor Series 2010 failed to sell well with Triple H in the main event and WWE decided that this meant that Survivor Series was an outdated show and should be canceled. They ended up undoing that decision, but it really did say something about the way Triple H seems to be viewed in the front office: Everything he does is good, so he can never be at fault.

So basically since then Triple H has been a part-time wrestler. There have been occasional complaints about him beating people up. Mostly, this is unnecessary hysteria that doesn't get applied to any other wrestler. I think the smarts have some legitimate grievances against him and that his title reigns in the 2002-2005 range were generally pretty bad, but mostly he's been a positive force for WWE in his time. Anyway, that post went on a lot long than I thought it would.

[Atty]

Internet turned on HHH around the time he beat Jericho at Mania. You know, because it would have made sense for the chicken shit heel to win the Mania main event.

Triple H is a glorious man. Put Bret in his place.

[Cewsh]

For the record, Triple H has openly said that he and Jericho begged Vince not to put them on after Rock/Hogan. It wasn't in any way his decision.

I think a big part of the issue, reading that, is people assuming that Triple H had direct control over the things that he did on the shows. And that's something I'm entirely dubious of.

Great post though, Law.

[Atty]

Yep. I've heard Jericho say the exact same too, which is quite telling when he's lined up for the Mania main event and doesn't think they've told a story that can follow another match.

[Cewsh]

If I saw the reaction Hogan and Rock got on the Raw before Wrestlemania, I'd be concerned about it too, even if it were Flair/Steamboat. Nothing could have followed that.

[JT4104]

Spot on Law..though i agree with Cewsh in that HHH would have had that much power at the time. I think of lot of this still comes back to where we are now, once Austin, Rock and company were gone HHH was left by himself with no one remotely close to his level. Same thing as Cena at this point that besides Punk, there is no one at his level and with today's fans the quick switches and quick pushes just dont seem to work anymore.

HHH has been a solid influence considering what happened to him in 96 and how he ended up where he is now.

[Atty]

Pretty much. Err, well they elevated Brock to that level as those guys left, but then he was gone. Same is true of Kurt Angle.

I love Jericho and he had all the talent to make it work at that level, but never really the attention span to keep it there. You would see it before his break where, when he'd work with certain guys (Shawn, Rock, Christian, HHH prior to their Mania feud, Benoit, Angle, Cena, Goldberg), he'd push his game to another level all around. After those feuds, he'd go on to work with others and seem to lose interest and go on auto-pilot. His run when he returned in 2007 to when he left again is the greatest stretch he'll ever have and really shows what he was always capable of.

[Kimura Kid]

Not gonna quote Law's post, it was a fantastic post!!

But I mostly gathered arguments based on opinion and hearsay. A lot of the smarks wanted HHH to lose to guys that weren't deserving or weren't on the same level HHH was at that time. A lot of people "Thought" he always had to be the focus....but isn't that what a top guy does? Triple H was the top guy there for a long time....wether people liked it or not. Seems to me most people dislike him for the same reason I disliked Cena many moons ago, over saturation!

That's what makes wrestling so special. People will have different opinions based on what & who they like and dislike.

It's crazy because in the short amount of time I've been here I've already learned that we are our own worst enemies. We want what we can't have but in the rare case we do get what we want we aren't happy with it.

One of my favorite type of finishes in any type of match is:

Hitting a finisher while the referee is unconscious and then being pinned after the referee was down for a solid 30 seconds.

The long drawn out referee count and anticipation make the finish special.

But someone else looks at it and says "They just shit on the guy that lost"

lol It is what it is I guess.

[Andy]

I don't think Trips should been blamed for not putting on a great match with Jericho at Mania 18, whether he had anything to do with the decision or not. I know the match between Rock and Hogan was huge, but I don't think anyone could've predicted how amazing it would've been. It was meant to be heel vs face, the feud was pretty poor and Hogan was struggling with injuries. It was also during a period where the WWE title meant more than anything in the company (which was great). I can only think of one occasion where in the previous four or five years where the title match didn't go on last (Austin/Trips at Survivor Series 2000). Even a huge match like Austin/Trips Three Stages of Hell didn't main event a PPV.

[kdestiny]

One of my favorite type of finishes in any type of match is:

Hitting a finisher while the referee is unconscious and then being pinned after the referee was down for a solid 30 seconds.

The long drawn out referee count and anticipation make the finish special.

But someone else looks at it and says "They just shit on the guy that lost"

lol It is what it is I guess.

its not the fact that this finish happened, it's the fact that it happened after only one pedigree.

to me this finish would've been more effective had Triple H had hit him with a devastating third or fourth pedigree of the match. I think it's the fact that it happened after one that made people so angry.

[Kimura Kid]

Back in my day 1 Finisher did the trick. Now it's a finisher bonanza!!

Being out cold for 1 Minute is common after the match. But Not while the ref is waking up?

How many times has a match finished after a single finisher and the guy that just got finished jumps right up and exits the ring? Normally they lay motionless for quite a bit of time.

That Type of finish is to keep you on your toes, Anticipation IMO

[HHHnFoley_Rulez]

Never liked the guy.

[Atty]

I don't think Trips should been blamed for not putting on a great match with Jericho at Mania 18, whether he had anything to do with the decision or not. I know the match between Rock and Hogan was huge, but I don't think anyone could've predicted how amazing it would've been. It was meant to be heel vs face, the feud was pretty poor and Hogan was struggling with injuries. It was also during a period where the WWE title meant more than anything in the company (which was great). I can only think of one occasion where in the previous four or five years where the title match didn't go on last (Austin/Trips at Survivor Series 2000). Even a huge match like Austin/Trips Three Stages of Hell didn't main event a PPV.

I don't think either should really be blamed for WM 18. If there is anyone to blame, I'd say it's Stephanie, but that's because she was the entire build up of the feud. HHH was still a bit rusty at that point and Jericho worked hard to cover that in match, but the crowd had no feud to care about. It was like they expected their earlier (and fantastic) feud to carry over into the match, but with the roles COMPLETELY REVERSED, that couldn't work without a lot more leg work than they put in.

Put the exact same match before a hot crowd and it would have been beloved. That's why Hogan/Rock needed to main event—HHH and Jericho knew that they hadn't done enough to follow it and that there was a good chance the crowd would tune out before either of them went to the ring. Hell, Jericho and HHH had a great showing a couple months later in their HIAC match. Even then there were the unfair expectations of someone bumping off the top, but they always worked very well together.

[JT4104]

yea the 2nd Jericho/HHH fued was just bad. I mean you had your undisputed champion cleaning up dog shit for petes sake.

[Peter Griffin]

Hunter is certainly making progress, and developing good ideas for the future, but to call him the 'savior' is shitting on the 30 year plus legacy Vince built from a much smaller territory into a global empire. I mean to say savior would suggest the WWE is on the verge of going out of business.

[chatty]

Pretty much. Err, well they elevated Brock to that level as those guys left, but then he was gone. Same is true of Kurt Angle.

I love Jericho and he had all the talent to make it work at that level, but never really the attention span to keep it there. You would see it before his break where, when he'd work with certain guys (Shawn, Rock, Christian, HHH prior to their Mania feud, Benoit, Angle, Cena, Goldberg), he'd push his game to another level all around. After those feuds, he'd go on to work with others and seem to lose interest and go on auto-pilot. His run when he returned in 2007 to when he left again is the greatest stretch he'll ever have and really shows what he was always capable of.

That was a fucking great run though, I think most wrestlers would be happy with two years like that.

I thought he was quality during his undisputed run as well, just wasn't as big a draw as they hoped, he did some quality work with Michaels, Austin, Rock, Flair, RVD, Cena, Christian, hardy etc

[Zacharie]

HHH never stood out to me belonging in the same group as Austin, Taker, HBK, Bret and Foley, yet he was booked as though he did belong in that group. Some of them title reigns he had dragged ass too. He married someone in the company and has a big group of friends, whatever, doesn't effect my opinion of him. I still never cared for him as a wrestler. Sure, he had some good matches, but nothing that amazed me to the point where I'd want to see him in the top group.

Business wise, he seems to be doing good. If he's the dude behind The Shield and Punk's long ass title run then that's awesome. I can't wait to see his next project.

[ReDPath]

HHH could be the savior of the WWE as long as he keeps Stephanie from looking over his shoulder.

[DaSaintFan]

Internet turned on HHH around the time he beat Jericho at Mania. You know, because it would have made sense for the chicken shit heel to win the Mania main event

Honestly, I think they turned on HHH when they booked Booker T to look like a chump the entire feud. If they had Booker go over HHH at that year's wrestlemania, I honestly don't think you'd hear anyone griping about HHH. Booker was the hottest thing going and HHH basically shat on Booker's entire career in that feud and Booker never got the NEEDED "blow off" win.

[Vice]

Yeah. You really can't really build a feud around an asshole white dude calling a black dude not good enough, basically just because he is a black former criminal and thus not in the white man's league at all.. and then have the white guy win in definitive, anticlimactic fashion. It's just bad.

Plus HHH was wearing a purple speedo in that match. Purple, the color of royalty. Perhaps foreshadowing THE KING OF KINGS. Who holds the black man down.

[Badger]

The match itself was the worst, Booker hits the Harlem hangover but can't make the cover..... a minute passes.... then HHH hits the pedigree....another minute passes....1-2, you'd think Booker would kick out at that point but it goes for 3. One of the worst booked finishes in the history of man.

The feud did have one of my favourite Lawler lines though, "Booker's family portrait is a courtroom sketch!"

[OD50]

I remember people being very pissed that HHH pinned RVD as well. Can't remember exactly when and where but I think the IC title was involved and it was some time in '03. Not sure but I remember reading quite a bit of bitching about it.

But honestly, how many wrestlers with backstage pull have not used that shit to some extent to benefit themselves/friends/family? Bill Watts made himself superman in Mid-South and later tried to make his shitty son a superstar in WCW when he was in charge. The Harts being the top faces in Stampede and The Von Erich kids in WCCW.. Dusty Rhodes being head booker in WCW booking Dustin in top line feuds and winning all kinds of titles in the early 90's, Shane Douglas getting the book in that crappy ECW knock-off and immediately making himself champion, The Kliq refusing to put anyone besides themselves over etc, etc..

[Vice]

[OD50]

[Hero!]

tbf, there really wasn't anyone else to hold that damn belt besides Jarrett and AJ during TNA's early years. Since then, TNA has had probably the longest string of credible champions that we've seen. Everyone who's held the TNA belt from Christian on has had a great run as champ.

Remember when Trips finally dropped the belt to Batista? After that we had Angle (credible), Rey (lost to everyone), Booker (could only win by cheating), Batista (took him like 8 PPVs to win it), Taker (short run), Edge (injured during), and THE GREAT KHALI. Fucksake, from Bats winning the title up until Edge cashed in his second MITB (>2 years), the WHCs were a joke. Hell, after that, the belt bounced around in some stupidly short reigns for another 2.5 years, till Taker finally held it for >100 days.

[Vice]

The early years I can understand that, but it's when they got an actual TV show that it became a big problem. Raven got the belt, and he was over and things were fresh and shit was awesome. Then they get a deal with SpikeTV, and Jarrett thinks things would be better if it was him on top when Impact makes the air. So he beats Raven at a house show in a different federation in Canada like two days before Impact starts on Spike. So not only is it bad that you have boring ol' Jeff Jarrett on top instead of a fresh Raven, who has a surprising amount of love from everyone, but you have to explain that your world championship changed hands the other day. At a house show. Different federation. In Canada. To me, that makes your title look terrible.

Then you've got Rhino. Yeah Rhino is terrible nowadays, but he actually was fairly fun back when he first came to TNA. And he was surprisingly over. Kevin Nash was scheduled to face Jarrett at Bound for Glory, TNA's budget version of WrestleMania, but since Nash was booked to lose in the main event, he decided to have a heart attack to avoid the loss. Which meant the main event needed a replacement. Instead of just pointing a finger at someone and moving them into the main event, they decided to let a bunch of people work a double, and have a giant gauntlet match to determine who fights in the main event. So Rhino defeated Abyss, Sabu, and Jeff Hardy in a really crazy Monster's Ball match. Then he wins the gauntlet match. Then 5 seconds later, Jarrett comes out to destroy the pretty much dead Rhino who has had zero time to rest. It's almost like a MITB cash-in, but Rhino overcomes it and defeats Jeff Jarrett to win the title.

So in one night, they turned a potential catastrophe into having someone seriously step the hell up, look like an absolute beast, get CRAZY OVER, look incredibly strong, and walk out champion on the biggest show of the year.. and then Rhino is obliterated the following Impact, loses the belt, and that was that. Jarrett was now back on top. Everyone was deflated. Facepalms all around. Rhino never really recovered, then went on to get worse and worse until he was the butt of many a Cewsh Reviews joke and actively called one of the worst wrestlers alive.

Christian comes into the company, wins the belt from Jarrett, and things are looking up for the company. It's Christian ffs and he doesn't look out of place as the world champion. In fact, in TNA, he looks PERFECT as the champion. But then he loses it to Jeff Jarrett via bullshit, which was then followed by nonsense until TNA became its own entity, going its separate ways with NWA. Jarrett more or less backed off at this point because his wife's cancer was really bad until she eventually passed away, and he took a lot of time away from the company, and was never really the same following that.

But from June 2002 until September of 2005, Jarrett held the belt 732 days. So 24 months out of 39. And his last reign ended in October of 2006. He held the belt over 1,000 days in a 52 month period. Someone would win the title, then Jarrett would win it back and kill a lot of their momentum. He was very bad. They did so poorly building new stars that it's incredible that TNA is still around.

[Zacharie]

Damn I forgot how bad the Planet Jarrett era was.e

[Vice]

And I didn't even mention how bad the majority of his matches were, how insanely anticlimactic the majority of his matches were, and all the people he more or less ruined when they were on the verge of breaking out, like Monty Brown.

[Hero!]

^ Shit like that is why I love Vice. If we continue this conversation elsewhere, i've got a rebuttal to that beast. Gonna take me a while, though, as i'm also "doing homework".

[OD50]

I remember ol' Double J pinning Jay Lethal when he was starting to get really over with the TNA fans as well. That was kind of stupid and unnecessary.

[Beer-Belly]

I think everyone everywhere hated him in 2003-2005. Fucking boring time that was for Raw.

Yep. Fucking horrendous. I pretty much just tuned in to see Stone Cold drink beer.

The worst part of that period was how badly they fucked up Kane during his heel push. Just terrible booking. They had the most dangerous and intense heel in years and they just jobbed him to Shane for no reason. Awful. They should have given him the World title and had him dominate. Virtually anything would have been an improvement over what they ended up doing.

[The Law]

You're mistaken. No one would have tuned in to see unmasked monster Kane rampaging with the title. They wanted to see Triple H. Afterall, they would have had to cut short his hot feud with Nash to put the title on Kane. They also really wanted to see Triple H beat Goldberg at Summerslam in the Elimination Chamber. No heels were allowed to be more over than Triple H at that time period.

[Jimmy Zero]

God, that Kane unmasking angle was the first time I'd been interested in WWE since probably 2001ish, and they fucked that up so fast and so colossally that I was astounded.

[Badger]

Yep. Fucking horrendous. I pretty much just tuned in to see Stone Cold drink beer.

The worst part of that period was how badly they fucked up Kane during his heel push. Just terrible booking. They had the most dangerous and intense heel in years and they just jobbed him to Shane for no reason. Awful. They should have given him the World title and had him dominate. Virtually anything would have been an improvement over what they ended up doing.

Technically he didn't job to Shane as he won both PPV bouts, but still he was indeed made to look very very awful.

[Cewsh]

I used to do a lot of defending of Jeff Jarrett's title runs around here back in the day. The main gist of which being that while they were creative train wrecks, there was nobody else the title should have reasonably been on until Christian. Post 2006 is the bit I can't defend.