10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Triple H
4. Just How Many People It Took To Keep Him At The Top...
The problem with the "Reign Of Terror" that broadly covers Triple H's multiple World Title victories and monopoly of the Raw main event picture between 2002 and 2005 is that it really was as bad as people remember and nostalgia will ultimately be too kind to it.
People's memories of weekly 20/30-minute monologues might be rooted in exaggeration, but not by much and only because it genuinely felt that way even when Hunter managed to get his brand of boring bluster out in five minutes or less. Ultimately, so many of his stories were shaped around the pettiest of power plays and obvious political machinations that investing wholly in WWE's fiction became truly pointless for the first time since the market leader scored its precious monopoly years earlier.
In much the same way the bodies can be stacked on his way to the top, so too can the victims he claimed as he pretended not to slide back down. Rob Van Dam had unified the European, Hardcore and Intercontinental Straps on Mondays to head into a "One show, One Championship" match with World Champion Hunter. 'Mr Monday Night' was Mr J-O-B there. Scott Steiner signed in November and shared in such a pathetic series with Hunter that he didn't even get a WrestleMania match in March. Booker T did, and check elsewhere in this list to see how well that went. Kevin Nash wrestled his mate in some tedious 2003 contests but couldn't beat him for all the money and miles in the world. Goldberg had to lose all his credibility in an Elimination Chamber defeat before losing his cool in a long and boring battle when he finally beat him a month later. Not that it mattered - Hunter was back on top a few months later.
2004 went much the same way, but Hunter really went for the legs of the up-and-comers to cheer himself up after putting Chris Benoit over clean for the World Heavyweight Championship. After definitively winning (!) his piss boring blood feud with Shawn Michaels, he dropped down slightly to expertly hobble Eugene, Randy Orton and to a lesser extent Edge and Shelton Benjamin across the year. A year he once again ended as Champion before the monotony was at long last broken by the force of nature that was Dave Batista.