At No Mercy 2007, the WWE Championship was defended on three separate occasions. In the first match of the night the belt was awarded to Randy Orton, having been vacated by the injured John Cena before the event started. No sooner had Orton received the belt than had Triple H come out to challenge the Viper to a match. Moments later, by way of a roll-up, Hunter was the new WWE Champion. It doesn't sound like Triple H really suffered so far, but there's more. The Game was already scheduled to face Umaga that night, in a match that would now be for the WWE Championship. After a hard fought battle where the Samoan Bulldozer really took it to the recently-crowned champion, Triple H again came out victorious. It was only after that match that Randy Orton decided to cash in his rematch clause in a Last Man Standing match, which would take place as the main event that evening. Having started the evening as champion, Randy Orton ended up beating Triple H to such a point that he couldn't answer the referee's ten count, and Orton went on to regain the championship that he'd lost earlier. Though Orton's reign that evening was shorter than Triple H's, he never officially won the title, instead being awarded it by Vince McMahon. It can be argued that Triple H was the only person that to night to actually win the title AND lose it on that night. Whether or not this elevated the championship or the competitors involved is another matter; it still takes the removal of one's ego to have their name down in the history books as one of the shortest-reigning WWE Champions ever. Triple H did exactly that, and did it to help put over his former Evolution protege at the end of the evening.
