10 Things You Didn't Know Were Banned In Triple H's WWE
Triple H's WWE is no longer the bloody mess it was with Vince McMahon in charge...
"Triple H's WWE" still feels surreal.
Cynically, that might be because it still feels rather a lot like Vince McMahon's WWE. It is not a dramatically transformed product, much like NXT wasn't in retrospect. It's better, undeniably so, and while the same tired tropes continue - impromptu matches, interferences that are never sanctioned and thus could just happen all the time, the nauseating camera cuts - a feeling of optimism around the product has swelled because Triple H is getting a lot of minor, bare-minimum things right.
Allowing GUNTHER to wrestle like WALTER has propelled WWE into the upper reaches of critically acclaimed wrestling. Rebooting Kevin Owens feels like a mission statement as much as a push, of a WWE product the way it should have been throughout those lost, incomprehensible years. The Bloodline feel like the biggest threat in the game because WWE have done such a masterful job of making fans feel something for Sami Zayn with the lurking unease that it's going to end horribly for him - but wonderfully for fans starved of true, emotionally devastating storytelling.
Those hoping for a total reinvention might wish to temper their expectations; you can take the Vince McMahon out of WWE, but you can't take the WWE out of WWE...
10. Blood
It's a shame, because WWE is in the advantageous position of shooting a heel beat-down bloodbath angle and it actually meaning something.
The AEW of 2022 is defined by its excess - belts out the ass, a surplus of yet more recruitment storylines, a bloated talent roster that can't resonate on TV as it does on paper - and blood is no different. It still works when it works, as when Jon Moxley used it to advance a fighting champion gimmick crucial in masking the turmoil, but it no longer serves its original core purpose. Blood should be used sparingly, smeared all over the babyface, as a lurid visual driver of sympathy.
We're a long way from Cody Rhodes Vs. Dustin Rhodes, and so is WWE.
Imagine if, when Sami Zayn finally makes that one pivotal mistake, with the best of intentions, Roman Reigns beats the plasma out of his forehead. Because WWE doesn't use blood, it won't happen, but it would be the perfect, devastating, shocking heat angle twist to a masterful story.
Triple H reiterated the old rule recently, telling the Ringer that it would be "irresponsible" to "go back".
Bumping is worse for a wrestler, but in a fake business, it doesn't look like it.