The Worst Year Of Triple H's WWE Career

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.

2003 ended with Triple H and his Evolution group atop the world, and life as a HHHater was made even harder by several unconnected events around that time. For one, he bantered 'Sheriff' Steve Austin off the face of the planet for having a toy badge, in a reminder that he was one of the only characters actually booked seriously on a rotten and rotting Raw. For another, he had an absolute firecracker of a bout with Shawn Michaels - maybe their best straight match ever - that faked a possibility that he was back to his 2000 best. 2004 wouldn't prove to get a lot better, but the latter moments from a p*ss poor year created the vague sense that he'd found his form again.

But he never did. Not really, anyway. And certainly not consistently. Once legitimately the best wrestler in the world for around 18 months, Hunter flattened his curve and instead became a wrestler that very occasionally had really good battles if he was in there with the right guy and you don't mind the pace being a step slower than everything else on the card.

That's a lot of qualifiers for a guy that, at various points referred to himself as "That Damn Good", 'The Game' and 'The King Of Kings'. At least 'Cerebral Assassin' proved true - he killed off so many people's enjoyment of wrestling in 2003 that they had no choice but to try and erase it from their minds completely.