How Triple H Has Created Evolution 2.0 For WWE With The Undisputed Era
The Batista run was the first proving ground for Triple H as a developer of talent rather than an IRL destroyer. The 'reign of terror' was finally over, and though he never met a clean job he particularly liked, he leveled the playing field a little as the decade wore on. Ageing icon Hunter's job was at this point to start helping get over the stars of tomorrow, but his vision for protecting the future the business wouldn't take shape until he'd smashed his hammer into the back of the man gradually killing it.
The timelines are predictably a little muddled, but Triple H's rise to corporate power within WWE naturally came as his in-ring role diminished - it had to in order for him to spend more time thinking of others rather than himself. Even during the transitional phase, he built a WrestleMania match with The Undertaker by verbally eviscerating the entire roster backstage before decking Sheamus in a pathetic excuse to a payoff to a dead angle. John Laurinaitis was even deader behind the eyes than 'The Deadman' himself when 'The Game' stepped to him and his Talent Relations role, dulled by relentless failure to bring through talent to carry WWE into the next several decades. NXT - the original NXT - was a warped on-screen vision of the developmental disrepute.
The Undisputed Era as they are now would not be allowed to be the coolest dipsh*ts in the room on that NXT. They'd be forced to cut promos on the fly about their wrist-tape and do jumping jacks blindfolded whilst Michael Cole and Matt Striker called them all geeks. Triple H - as he did when he brought together his idol and his hottest prospects in 2003 - wants not to shame but to show off the individual and collective talents of all four.
The comic timing of Fish and O'Reilly from their ReDragon ROH days remains in tact. Longtime frenemy Strong completes the package with similar chemistry. It's almost as if Hunter knew what made them work already and looked to exploit it rather than expel it. Times are continuing to change, but those that don't learn from history are still doomed to repeat it.
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