10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About 2022
8. The New "Wrestling" Narrative
You might think that WWE wants you to forget about how bad the promotion was before Triple H took over, but the opposite is true.
They want you to remember not just how bad but how dull and flat it was. Pre-'Papa H', the product wasn't even perversely awful, as was the case for several years but particularly in 2019 and 2020. It barely registered in the discourse despite impressing where it mattered (in the Nielsens). It was just there, mostly.
It's important that you remember the curve so that Triple H's product is better by comparison. This is how he earned those early plaudits: by doing the absolute uninspiring basics of pro wrestling promotion - creating video packages underscoring the prestige of titles, building matches in advance in the home market of a beloved babyface - Triple H was considered early-to-mid '80s Bill Watts.
What they do want you to forget is that period in which several wrestlers, most notably Drew McIntyre, screamed the word "wrestling" in what was a new mission statement. Except it wasn't; WWE remains a sports entertainment production, for all the strange talk of the Jericho Appreciation Society being made irrelevant in the immediate wake of the TakeOver of the main roster.
What, realistically, has changed?
The time dedicated to the 24/7 division is now used to make the matches longer. Matches are still hardly made in the classic wrestling context; rather, several are made on the night, which otherwise wouldn't host a show were it not for the contrivance, via promo train squabble or poker game invitational. Triple H simply does sports entertainment in a slightly less antagonistic, chaotic and short-term way.
About those match lengths...