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

2. A True Secondary Title

Triple H Vince McMahon June 27 news thumbnail
WWE.com

The decision to have Roman Reigns walk out of WrestleMania 39 with both world titles intact left WWE with a dilemma: If you aren’t taking the titles off him until Mania 40 and he’s going to be a part-time champ, then you effectively don’t have a real world title scene.

Enter the World Heavyweight Championship.

By Triple H’s own admission when he unveiled the title this spring, this was a consolation prize, a title for everyone not named Roman to covet and chase. It felt like a surreal moment where he was saying the quiet part out loud: By not separating the titles at any point during the past year or having Cody Rhodes win at Mania, you were leaving your two world titles around a guy who now hasn’t defended the title(s) in more than 100 days.

Someday, the World Heavyweight Championship might become a true, valued title held in high regard. But every day that goes by now, it feels like a desperate course correction after a bad decision in April. Gunther’s Intercontinental Championship feels like the real prize on Raw, or even the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship given their recent trajectory.

This was a huge misfire that will take a lot of time and consistent effort to rectify. And it could have been easily avoided.

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.