10 Steps WWE Took To Become The Most Toxic Wrestling Company Ever

4. The Rise Of Triple H...

Triple H is a very, very smart man.

He knew whom and what to hang his hat on. He cosied up to the Kliq in his early years, and literally got into bed with Stephanie McMahon to secure his long-term top management career. He was either always a perfect fit for top-level WWE management, or he worked himself into the ethos. The smug smile plastered over his face, at his defensive worst, all but confirms the former - though the hardcore fan appeasement strategy that is NXT underlines his expansive ability to work all sides. Triple H seemed to revel in his perniciousness.

Kofi Kingston was a kayfabe-denting punchline for the self-styled Game, who played by his own rules. Wider company initiatives, like the Wellness Policy, were no barrier to his snarky sense of humour. In spite of his own...suspicious physique, Chris Masters was buried on television for contravening it. Trips' insistence that Lilian Garcia was, in fact, an anthropomorphic horse revealed exactly why he and Vince McMahon share such a bond. Both men - and there is no delicate or less objective way of putting it - are nasty to the core. Triple H is much like his predecessor; he is in the process of gutting and monopolising the UK "graps" (shudder) scene, and has a propensity to unleash his inner monster on those around him for no discernible storyline reason.

Leave it to Golden Era Simpsons to summarise the phenomenon better than all others:

"Well, animals are a lot like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated. But, like people, some of them are just jerks."