10 Things Everybody Gets Wrong About Triple H's WWE
3. WWE Is Still Bad
That's the temptation: brand loyalty is so fierce, so wrapped up in the identity of the tribe, that nothing good can ever come from a certain company purely as a result of the three initials it bears.
Despite staggering ratings, it would be charitable in the extreme to describe this period of WWE as white-hot. The crowds aren't going apesh*t, megastars aren't being made, nothing seminal is happening - but the product is no longer the sh*ttiest thing you've ever seen. Not by half.
Even though fans aren't responding to it all of the time, what remains of the infamous "WWE style" is fading. Chad Gable and Dolph Ziggler wrestled a beautiful amateur-influenced match on Raw a few weeks back. Sheamus and Gunther worked a match so hard-hitting and well-crafted that it was astonishing. It could have happened on and stolen the show on Japanese soil. Even when WWE does do the WWE style now, Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre was one euphoric result away from perfecting it.
Even in the brain worms Vince era, WWE promoted great matches. It was difficult not to, given an excellent roster of talent.
Triple H, and this is something you probably didn't expect to read today, did almost too good a job of building Drew McIntyre ahead of Clash at the Castle; the man appeared so driven and sympathetic that the result scanned as a catastrophic error more than a deflating mistake.