10 Ways Triple H's WWE Dream Became A Complete Nightmare

4. WrestleMania Falter

Triple H Vince McMahon June 27 news thumbnail
WWE.com

Let’s be honest: 95% of WrestleMania 39 was tremendous. Over the course of two nights, WWE was on pace to have the best Mania of all time, a love letter to fans, rewarding them for sticking with the company through years of horrendous, unimaginative booking designed to entertain a deranged septuagenarian.

And then came the waning moments of the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match. Everything had built to the perfect crowning moment, and for whatever reason, WWE elected to have babyface Cody Rhodes not be able to finish the story that they had so masterfully told from Royal Rumble to Mania.

It seems clear now that we’re on pace to have a rematch at WrestleMania 40, and there’s always a chance that they can recapture a lot of the heat and momentum, but they will never recreate the magic that existed that April weekend over the course of both nights. Even if Rhodes' coronation goes off perfectly, you're asking all the stars to align again up and down the card. And not to try to speak something into existence, but a lot can happen during the next eight months.

What should have been a triumph for Triple H – booking arguably the greatest Mania ever – was immediately marred, frustrating fans who saw the old WWE creeping back, pulling the rug out at the last minute and then selling a little snake oil afterward to justify the decision.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.