The Lost Magic Of WWE's REAL Golden Era (And How To Bring It Back)
Take Becky Lynch following the run that made her a megastar.
She became 'The Man' in the Autumn of 2018 and made history in the main event of WrestleMania just a few months later, but the WWE machine and all its faulty wiring ensured she'd be colder as an act almost immediately afterwards. 'The Show Of Shows' always served as some kind of season finale, but good television leaves audiences desperate for more when it returns. Several years of risible post-WrestleMania pushes and weak Backlash/Payback-adjacent events resulted in the opposite - generations of fans that could switch off until SummerSlam or even next year's Royal Rumble because they knew how meaningless it had all become.
Lynch was proof of this, going back to back to back in various matches against Lacey Evans at Money In The Bank, Stomping Grounds and Extreme Rules in a feud that marginalised both of them and alienated audiences - Stomping Grounds infamously played to three sides and an enormous curtain. It's not like the cards were concise to make up for the repetition either. The longer they went the more the Network executives were handed fat bonus for the minutes-watched stats going up. Nobody got to win other than the people you never got to see, as the perfect opposite of fan service was finally achieved.
In a stark contrast around that time, Triple H oversaw what many now consider the beginning of the end of the TakeOver era with maybe the best ever edition of the show. April 2019's TakeOver: New York was a special night that - while damaged in hindsight by the actions of some of its roster - melded the real golden era of 2014/15 with the acclaim-bait obsessed late-2010s. Johnny Gargano becoming NXT Champion following an all-timer main event against Adam Cole was right out of the Bayley/Sasha Banks playbook, while blinding undercard wins for the likes of The Viking Raiders and Gunther served as flashbacks to the days where a Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens or Shinsuke Nakamura could make it in a market leader that felt closed off from their immense talents.
'The Game' cracked the code once before, and all he had to do was put his hands together. If required to flog advertising to the extent WWE now are, at least stack cards with all killer no filler, ensuring that the on-screen experience is as good as the one in the building. That way, the people that spent big on attending events in Cardiff, Montreal, Puerto Rico, London, Perth, Lyon (and, depending on when you read this, Glasgow and Berlin), are all likely to make the decision to spend again too.
Until everything within black-and-gold NXT outlived its usefulness with the launch of AEW and onset of the global pandemic, "TakeOver" remained a brand people held in the highest regard. If Triple H can do the same for the once-maligned "B-Show PLE" tag, it'll be - and think of the ground this covers - his biggest ever win.