10 Ways Triple H's WWE Dream Became A Complete Nightmare
9. Slamming Into Summer
To be fair, SummerSlam 2022’s card was largely booked under
Vince McMahon’s tenure, but the show itself had a different vibe to it. Whether
it was fans affixing their own feelings of a change after 40 years, something
was different.
And then we got it in the opening match. Bianca Belair defeated Becky Lynch to retain the Raw Women’s Championship and then had to face off against a returning Bayley… and a called-up Iyo Sky and rehired Dakota Kai. The first big roster moves of the Triple H era were upon us.
Then there was the main event, during which Brock Lesnar used a tractor to uproot the ring and turn his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match against Roman Reigns into a freak show of the best kind.
Critics rightly praised the show, which generated a fair amount of goodwill for Hunter and WWE as a whole. Maybe they were turning a corner.
But it’s worth noting here that Damage CTRL would hit its
high point just a few weeks later at Clash at the Castle and would become an
ineffective trio stuck in the mud for the majority of its run. One of the
biggest shocks of Triple H’s first major show had a pretty short shelf life.
And it turns out this was a trend…