In the summer of 2000, WWF stumbled on to a massive winner of a storyline. It was such a good story that the seeds were actually planted many months earlier, not long after Kurt Angle made his WWE debut. From his debut in November 1999, Kurt remained undefeated for a long time. Elsewhere on the roster, the McMahon/Helmsley regime had taken charge and Stephanie McMahon had taken a strange liking to Angle. Triple H got a little jealous, and despite both he and Angle being heel wrestlers, HHH attempted to use his power to put an end to Kurts winning streak. Every week, Stephanie would help Kurt maintain his streak, frustrating her new husband. Eventually, Kurt and Stephanie became friends with Kurt helping Stephanie win her matches and defending her Honor against Chris Jericho. Leading toward the summer, husband Triple H was growing more and more suspicious, which led to some of the most memorable segments of that year, most notably, Stephanie walking in on Triple H teaching Trish Stratus how to reverse a hammerlock. Their marriage got even shakier when the main event for Summerslam was to be HHH vs. the Rock vs. Kurt Angle, pitting her friend and her husband against each other. HHH and Stephanie were going through a rough patch, yet Kurt and Stephanies friendship was blossoming, including a long embrace after he saved her from a Bubba Ray table smash. Things continued to disintegrate when Kurt accidentally knocked Stephanie off the apron. That night ended with Kurt Angle professing how much he cared, and sneaking a kiss from the woozy McMahon. SummerSlam came, and before The Rock even got to the ring, Triple H stormed the ring and destroyed Angle. The match ended with HHH inadvertently striking his wife and the Rock picking up the win to retain. The feud continued over the next month leading to a highly anticipated Kurt Angle vs. HHH match at Unforgiven. The match came, and Stephanie sided with HHH and cost Kurt the match. Immediately after this, both men moved onto separate storylines and the angle was dropped abruptly. After building months of subtle layers, the two only actually had ONE major singles match against each other. Although the feud worked to build Kurt for his title run the following month, so much more could have been done with arguably the hottest storyline of the year. If Stephanie had sided with Kurt at Unforgiven, it could have led to him becoming a major heel instantly. The McMahon/Angle Regime would have been hugely entertaining. Triple H became a face again for about a month anyway, so they may as well have done something a bit more ambitious. Instead, the hot angle fizzled out and both men moved onto completely unrelated stories. Kurt became Champion, while HHH ended up involved in the Austin car crash angle. The fans never got their satisfying ending to the McMahon/Angle/Triple H love triangle.
