6 WrestleMania Title Matches That Should Have Been Triple Threats
2. WrestleMania 18 - Chris Jericho Vs. Triple H Vs. STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN
Triple H had long been positioned to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 18 upon his return from a serious quadricep injury. Chris Jericho was the right type of slippery heel to get career baddy HHH over as a babyface, but lacked the star power to carry the weight of a main event that followed The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan - an enviable task for anyone, in truth.
If there is any wrestler who could have shouldered that burden it was 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin, who ended up being wasted at the same event in a throwaway match with Hogan’s nWo pal Scott Hall, a dead angle which contributed to Austin’s exodus from the company.
Austin and Triple H had spent the year prior to ‘The Game’s’ injury entangled in a bitter-enemies-turned-unlikely-allies storyline which verged on soap opera at times, but did deliver some memorable moments and collisions, notably a hellacious ’Three Stages of Hell’ match at No Way Out 2001. Their short-lived ‘Two Man Power Trip’ tag team would surely have ended with more of the same, a payoff we were denied by that snap of HHH’s quad.
It felt like there was unfinished business between ‘The King of Kings’ and ‘The Rattlesnake’, and exploring this at the SkyDome in Toronto would have been a better way to utilise Austin, helping the main event stay afloat, rather than drown in the aftermath of Rock vs. Hogan.