13 Ups & 9 Downs For WWE In 2022

3. The Liv Morgan Push

WWE tried and failed to make a star out of Liv Morgan this year, and whilst we used to live in an era where points were awarded simply for trying at all, Triple H's stepping into Vince McMahon's shoes has allowed the bar to be raised. And Morgan's run fell damagingly below it.

A Money In The Bank cash-in victory has always been a less-than-ideal start for any babyface, but when Morgan failed to conclusively beat former Champion Ronda Rousey in the cleaner confines of a SummerSlam rematch, the booking of her time at the top seemed doomed from there.

She lost all credibility with an audience that had specifically propelled her into the spot in the first place because they believed in her. It was as if that specific finish - Morgan secured a pinfall right as Rousey secured a tap-out - was designed with the expressed purpose of burying what people loved, and crowd reactions flipping on television in the run-up to their final battle at Extreme Rules spoke to the mess that had been made.

She's in recovery mode at present and it's hard to imagine she won't rise back up once again when the timing is right, but Triple H had the opportunity to prove himself different to nnnnnnDadddd-uh by getting this one right from the start. That he failed and in such short order was a worrying reminder of how it was to temper optimism that any of this really was a brave new world after all.