4 Ups & 5 Downs For WWE Wrestlepalooza 2025 (Results & Review)

1. Another Triple H Wankfest

It really wouldn’t be a major “new era” for WWE if it wasn’t highlighted and punctuated by Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

Wrestlepalooza opened with a video package that tied WWE to the sports world, but with professional athletes (such as Lawrence Taylor, Dennis Rodman, Floyd Mayweather, and Mike Tyson) mixing it up with wrestlers and also mimicking their popular taunts and wearing title belts. They wove in ESPN bumpers and clips where the sports network discussed or promoted WWE, including Steve Austin taking a chair shot while sitting at a lunch table and asking for another hit.

Levesque performed the voiceover for the video. After the pyro concluded, Triple H was in the ring (ironically enough, standing on a Papa Johns logo) and welcomed everyone to “the final form of sports and entertainment,” suggesting that the ESPN deal was a summit of some kind for WWE.

Much like the Netflix debut just eight months earlier, the big intro ended up being all about one man: Levesque. Just in case anyone thought for one second that it might be about the wrestlers, Triple H was front and center via voice and in person to drive the point home.

But it’s Road Dogg’s fault that SmackDown’s booking has stunk for large parts of 2025.

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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.