One WWE Match You MUST Watch From Every Year 1984-2024
19. 2005 - Batista Vs Triple H, Vengeance
Getting to benefit from all the mistakes made in the push of his stablemate, Batista didn't just get this and two other wins over Triple H to cement him as the top guy - he got the storyline build that confirmed him as such before they'd even hit the ring.
WrestleMania 21 was a coronation for 'The Animal', and a (better) rematch at Backlash the following month was yet again decisive enough to almost put 'The Game' in his place. Almost, because this meaty Hell In A Cell awaited, removing any reasonable doubt whatsoever that Hunter had at long last passed a torch.
Violently worked and paced, the Vengeance headliner was Triple H's best match of the year and realistically his best match in years. While not exactly a carry job, it had been clear at times in the prior two encounters where the veteran was stepping in to lead the less seasoned of the two. On occasions that was at Big Dave's expense, leading some to assume that the former Champion was up to his old tricks and trying to tacitly bury his young charge right as he was putting him over. That argument was nowhere to be found here.
As violent a non-Foley Cell match the company had promoted since Shawn Michaels' hit-and-run epic against The Undertaker, this attritional bloodbath found the deposed king trying in vain to show that he could still lay a claim to the throne and his replacement proving beyond any doubt that he was no pretender. Hunter had his sledgehammer in his hand as he was drilled with a decisive Batista Bomb - it didn't matter how devastating his weapons were, because the saviour of the World Heavyweight Championship wasn't prepared to let him use them anymore.