DMJ

^ Me too. I loved the chaos. I loved the electric crowd. I loved the emotion at the end. Nakano's powerbombs were nasty. The chain stuff was great. Some great suplexes throughout. I like when high risk maneuvers don't look perfect and its clear why they are considered "high risk." I don't even mind when Kong doesn't quite connect with the Uraken because, well, a boxer doesn't always connect with their best jab either. What keeps me from really loving this, though, is actually the backwards layout. I'm not the most well-versed guy in Japanese wrestling so maybe I'm just not familiar or appreciative enough of what they were doing, but this match starts as an absolutely WILD brawl, eventually turns into something resembling an actual tag match, goes back to being complete CHAOS with giant bamboo sticks and chains and scissors and then...turns into just a really good, if not great, tag team match. Instead of their being an escalation of violence, the match goes from incredibly violent to, for lack of a better description, fairly "tame." Again, maybe its ignorance of joshi coming into play, but its a bit jarring to see a match that is so wild and crazy settle into a more traditional format for its 4th quarter.

I was happy to see Andrade back...until they immediately put him in the ever-expanding Callis Family. Him re-debuting by attacking Omega was an immediate "big impact" move. And then, an hour later, he's off to the side, standing there next to Okada and Fletcher and a bunch of other dudes and, just like that, he's back to being just another guy. One step forward, two steps back. Also - how come every single wrestling fan who comments on Reddit, X, Facebook, a forum like this, etc. recognizes that Andrade's best presentation was with a female manager and without the gimp mask but wrestling promoters don't? Its not like Zelina Vega was the female Paul Heyman or the 2nd coming of Sensational Sherri. Surely there's some beautiful bilingual woman somewhere that can be his manager (and maybe help him update the look).

He made my list last time and I expect he'll make it again. I have rated 44 matches in my database and his average is a fairly strong 3.04-out-of-5, which, for context, would put him above guys like DDP, Sean Waltman, Dean Malenko, and Rob Van Dam. And that's just his matches and not taking into account his promos or character/storylines or just personal preference for what they do. The highest rated Pillman match I have from his WWE run, aside from the Canadian Stampede match, is against Dustin at IYH: Ground Zero. I wrote this on my blog about it way back in 2016: "Unlike their match at the previous month's SummerSlam, this one has good heat and a number of well-received high spots, including a huge suplex on the steel ramp. Pillman eventually gets the upper hand and Goldie puts just as much energy into his bumping and selling as his opponent had. Goldust gets the upperhand back and launches Pillman into the guardrail from the top rope and, minutes later, lands his Curtain Call finish but is unable to capitalize due to a ref bump. Marlena tries to make the save, but one can guess how that ends up. Solid opener that the crowd enjoyed and improved on their previous match considerably."

^ Mostly same feelings. * I didn't mind the opener as much as you, El-P. I'm not a big Edge fan, but I liked the bells-and-whistles here and almost always have time for FTR and Christian. Plus, the pre-match stuff with Wendel Clark and Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys popped me. I agree that I don't need to see Beth Phoenix compete in AEW when there's not a storyline reason for her to...but I wouldn't shit on it immediately if they did come up with a good reason for her to get back in the ring. I just don't see what the story would be when she has no history in AEW or any unfinished business with any of the AEW women. Maybe Stokely recruits someone like Megan Bayne? A Bayne/Phoenix match on a random episode of Dynamite is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I wouldn't hate it outright. What else is Bayne doing? * The Kingston match was the worst match of the show. One of several puzzling TK decisions. Even on paper, I'm not sure Kingston/Big Bill is a pairing that was ever going to work, especially with both guys coming in cold. HOOK's return was a head-scratcher too. Like...this was what all the videos were leading up to? The same guy coming out with the same look to go right back into a "hamster wheel" storyline vaguely associated to The Learning Tree? Speaking of bad returns, the Jack Perry/Luchasaurus reunion was probably the worst return angle in recent wrestling history. Just super dumb. It was like watching an NBA All-Star missing a fast break lay-up on a 5-foot Fisher Price hoop. I'll break it down because it deserves to be shit on piece-by-piece: the Bucks lose, good call, but kinda got some face pops throughout the match because they did cool stuff and let everyone else shine (which has always been their saving grace even when their characters are at their most despicable). Jack Perry shows up to get revenge on a team that has just been through a 20-minute ladder match, which is a heel thing to do, and eats a superkick because its a 2-on-1 situation. He gets no sympathy because he was aggressor. The lights go out and a video plays of Jack Perry "revitalizing" Luchasaurus...who actually returned a month ago at Forbidden Door to replace Nick Wayne. I'll admit, I missed whether he fully turned on Wayne and Sabian on TV or was taken out by them (which would explain why he needed to be revitalized) after teasing a face turn at Forbidden Door but they didn't mention it on commentary so I don't know. ANYWAY...the lights come back on and the Bucks, one of the most meta teams ever, have their backs turned to Killswitch because they've never seen a wrestling show before or had this happen to them before (even though I would swear its happened to them multiple times and they've actually pulled the same ruse themselves). Luchasaurus takes out the Bucks with a double chokeslam and then him and Perry embrace, reforming Jurassic Express. So...Perry's plan was to come out and get beaten up and that was the cue for the lights to go out and the video to play?? Great strategy, moron. This would've been so, so, so much better if they had followed the ol' K.I.S.S rule (Keep it Simple, Stupid) and saved the return for Dynamite with the Bucks doing something heelish and nefarious, beating up someone the fans have sympathy for and drawing heat, and then Perry and Luchasaurus coming out to make the save. Or, hey, don't even have it be the Bucks. Have it be Hechicero and Alexander and Don Callis because, y'know, they're full-blown heels and not the Bucks, who have spent most of the past three months eating shit because they're no longer EVPs and basically working as a comedy act. * As terrible as that angle was, though, there was still so much to love on this show. The main event was AWESOME. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but like I've said about Ospreay's work, if you're going to give me a "fireworks" match, give me the best "fireworks" imaginable. And, to be honest, I actually thought, considering the style of the match, they did let things "breathe" quite well and the high-impact stuff was sold sufficiently (ignoring that, yeah, we got close to 40 minutes of Fletcher taking some of the nastiest head drops ever). Kyle Fletcher is either going to be paralyzed 5 years from now or considered the best in-ring worker of his generation, its one or the other, no in-between. His execution on everything from the running boots to the powerbombs was NASTY. * The hardcore matches - MJF/Briscoe and Allin/Mox delivered - and I liked both women's matches, especially the shock ending to the 4-way. On a show where practically every outcome was predictable, Statlander winning the belt was unexpected but also felt earned and like it is leading somewhere interesting with the quasi-mentorship from Wheeler Yuta. One of the best PPVs I've ever seen, warts and all. Oh, and Takeshita/Okada/Dorado was great too. Takeshita is one of my favorites of the past few years and, like Fletcher, I just want to see him constantly in the mix from now on.

We all knew it was going to happen some day, so why not this year? As far as on-screen performance, I don't think anyone would confuse Stephanie McMahon with Meryl Streep and, in terms of charisma, she pales beside her old man and her brother. That being said, as a tool for WWE's creative team, she was incredibly valuable and, in pro-wrestling, what sometimes matters more than acting chops, inherent magnetism, or the "It" factor is believability. Stephanie played the role she was born to play - Vince's naive, innocent daughter who ends up being every bit as cruel, vindictive, and egomaniacal as her father. She was believable in the role because the most important part - whether we could believe she was Vince's actual daughter - required no suspension of disbelief. Over time, another key element - her marriage to Triple H - also took shape requiring no suspension of disbelief. We believed in The Authority Angle against Bryan Danielson and Big Show and Dusty Rhodes because we knew the on-screen characters' hatred for the WWE Universe's chosen heroes was an extension of the real life power that Stephanie and Paul Levesque held (even if the debate on how much real pettiness/animus leaked into the storyline is debatable). I do think its a bit odd that she's getting her flowers when, at 48 years old, she's relatively young to have her career celebrated. Typically, when people say they are eager to do less work and spend more time with their family, they do it when their kids are relatively young, not a few years away from college. Then again, Triple H's semi-recent health scare may have changed things. I also think, with each passing month, the company is less and less the "family business" it once was and more and more a completely corporate entity with its most powerful executives not having the McMahon surname. Steph and Triple H will always be there, but at this point, the "content" of the WWE has never mattered less. Delivering quality storytelling is like 12th or 13th priority now. Its also a bit surprising because one would imagine that John Cena, retiring in December, would be due for a big Hall of Fame induction this year as so much of 2025 has been about his farewell tour. There's also The Rock. And then there's Brock Lesnar and also some scuttlebutt about Chris Jericho possibly returning to the WWE. Obviously any of these other people could join her in the Class of 2026, but these are all names that are arguably "headline" inductions independently.

Whether the Saudi government ever outright owns the WWE is sort of a moot point if the company's number one benefactor/backer/sponsor is the Saudi government. In a book I can't recall the name of, the author makes a similar point about the stars of the NBA. Sure, to most sports fans, we'd consider the Lakers franchise to be LeBron's boss. But they're not. His contract with Nike is way more lucrative. He makes more from Pepsi than he does from the Lakers. These are the companies Lebron actually works for. The more money the Saudis invest into the company, to put on shows there, to make Saudi Arabia the "global capital" of the WWE brand, to use it as a PR tool, the more the WWE's number one boss becomes Saudi Arabia. And I do think, in time, we're going to see even more noticeable effects from it beyond just the major shows being held there.

I'm far from an AJ Lee or CM Punk stan, but the full segment of her return has like 4.5+ million views on YouTube. Meanwhile, various return vids of Nikki Bella maxed out around 700k. Within 2 days, AJ Lee's return also surpassed Brock Lesnar's (which happened a month ago) in terms of views. It might not interest you, but "hard to imagine a less exciting return" is just bad hyperbole. To be honest, I think the real appeal here and the reason this story has resonated is because the Rollins/Punk feud has been a big deal for over a year (even if many of us are sick of it here), CM Punk remains super over with the WWE audience, and Becky Lynch has done a great job as a heel and the audience wants to see her get her comeuppance. It's just classic pro-wrestling. As Jim Ross used to put it, there are alot of "personal issues" being played out in a "wrestling drama" and, though we've seen it a hundred times, its not really super common for the WWE to do a major mixed tag storylines that is treated seriously as a top-of-the-card attraction (I mean, didn't the last one involve Snooki?).

Haven't watched the main event yet, but I did think Cena/Paul was good for what it was. I disliked the Cody match for a number of reasons and I could see the argument that this match was more of the same with them going overboard on the "movez" and finisher kickouts. But this match worked more than that one because it didn't have also be a No DQ grudge match, wasn't coming off a "let's just pretend the past 5 months didn't happen" face turn, and didn't go 35 minutes. This match went long, sure, and I certainly wouldn't call it a masterclass in psychology or storytelling or pay-offs. It was Cena and Paul doing every single move in their repertoire and some that were in other people's. If that doesn't sound like a good time to you, steer clear. I theorized that Cena was washed based on his work from the Rumble up till last month and that this was the real reason he was choosing to lean-in to bad tendencies (as a way to get heat in a meta sense by working at half-speed, calling his spots even more, only doing finishers, etc.). It now seems those decisions were less about his physical drawbacks and more just a risky decision to change his in-ring style as a heel and it was just a bad call. Oh well. What is more interesting is that this is the first match - unless I'm mistaken - in which Logan Paul didn't do any real heel tactics or take any shortcuts. There were no brass knucks and no run-ins. Michael Cole was putting him over big on commentary. Are we heading for a Logan Paul face turn? Would the audience accept it? I'm not sure how effectively they can position him as a babyface...but I don't think its impossible. I'm curious what would happen, for example, if they ran Logan Paul vs. Brock Lesnar. They're both pretty polarizing figures and its unclear how the audiences will react to Lesnar once he is on TV more and more. The initial pop may have been one of genuine surprise from his appearance and not necessarily a "Welcome Back" reaction. Meanwhile, the more Logan Paul appears on TV, the less he's a "non-wrestler" and the more they can build him up on commentary as a guy who is brash, arrogant, maybe too self-possessed...but also fully-invested in wrestling and no longer taking shortcuts to be the best. And, toe-to-toe, Logan Paul is going to go in as the underdog from a visual standpoint.

Having just watched the Donnybrook match against Rusev from Clash in Paris, I had to go back and look at my list and was a little surprised that Sheamus wasn't on it. Now, in 2016, I was, admittedly, not a big fan of him but I've definitely come around and am thinking he's almost guaranteed to make my list somewhere in the 70-90 range. I think what changed/clicked for me with him was that, for awhile, I thought he was a guy who needed a great dance partner to be impressive, whether it was Danielson or Dustin Rhodes, but then he just amassed such a great catalog of matches with so many other wrestlers that it became undeniable that he wasn't just a big, meaty broomstick. Some post-2016 faves: - vs. Ludwig Kaiser vs. Bron Breaker (Survivor Series 2024) - vs. GUNTHER (Clash at the Castle 2022) - w/ Cesaro vs. The Usos (Survivor Series 2017) - vs. Jeff Hardy (Backlash 2020) - vs. Drew McIntyre (Fastlane 2021) - vs. Matt Riddle (WrestleMania XXXVII)

Most certainly on my list and I may even be the high voter on him. One of my favorite Foley matches that I think is a bit "slept on" is the 2-on-1 tag team match he has against the New Age Outlaws at SummerSlam 98'. Here's my blog write-up for a few years ago when I re-watched it for the first time since it probably aired: Mankind defends both WWE Tag Team Championship belts against the New Age Outlaws in the next match. This is another unexpected treat and unique match. Mankind's tag team partner was Kane, but as the Undertaker had said on Heat, Kane was not going to be appearing. After his legendary fall from the top of the cell at King of the Ring a few months prior, Mankind was basically a "tweener" - popular with the fans, sympathetic for his naivete and trusting nature, but clearly being manipulated by Vince McMahon into doing heel things. People talk about the Bloodline storyline being one of the best the WWE ever produced, but I'd nominate Mankind's work in 98' to be right there with what Roman and the Usos (and Zayn) have been doing. Anyway...the Outlaws come out to a big pop, but you can tell the audience is fully behind Foley too as they cheer for every one of his offensive maneuvers. I like how this was booked as Foley, the King of Hardcore, is able to hold his own at times but never really seems like he's going to win because, at almost every turn, the numbers game cuts him down. There are also some legit great spots in here - a proto-Conchairto by the Outlaws with cookie sheets, a great-looking swingin' neckbreaker on the concrete from Mick to Billy Gunn, an absolutely vicious Russian Leg Sweep from the Outlaws that sends the back of Mankind's skull into a steel dumpster, and a two-man powerbomb through a pair of chairs. This match works because the Outlaws get to look like serious ass-kickers (there's absolutely none of that lame Road Dogg dancing shtick here) that will do what it takes to win the championships and Mankind gets to prove how tough he is. The only thing that doesn't quite work for me is the post-match, though, again, to the WWE's credit, they didn't do what I expected by having the Outlaws praise Mankind for his toughness. Instead, after getting the pin, the Outlaws actually berate Mankind a bit and throw him into the dumpster (a very heelish move, but, again, DX weren't supposed to be lovable babyfaces, so it actually makes sense that they would gloat a bit and be obnoxious). Once Foley is in the dumpster, we get a surprise appearance from Kane, who emerges from within it and then strikes down Foley with a sledgehammer (we don't actually see Foley get struck by the way it is filmed). Its a cool visual and cleverly puts the heat onto Kane and off of the Outlaws. I'm on the fence over whether or not this is must-see, but, then again, this might be the most entertaining match the Outlaws were ever involved in from beginning to end. (4/5) With Foley, I feel like, sprinkled throughout his career are these little matches that shouldn't work or be memorable and then, fuck, did he just get a good match out of Van Hammer? And, maybe most impressively in 2025, while he does take ridiculous bumps, its not like he's eating up 20 minutes to make every match an epic. The match described above goes under 6 minutes. Sure, its loaded with crazy shit, but, to be fair, unlike so many modern guys who might do the same level of violence (or more) and spread it out over the course of 20 minutes, Foley's hardcore matches get incredible sympathy from the crowd and he consistently sells these big spots and, if you're going to do this sorta thing, wouldn't it be more realistic if the fight ended after 10 minutes? I know there are plenty of times Foley went long too, but if you're getting your head smashed into metal things repeatedly, and its 2-on-1, it makes sense that you're put down quickly. This same match today would needlessly go twice as long, feature twice as many unrealistic hope spots, and probably feature at least one overly-choreographed sequence instead of just being the best version of what it should be, a one-sided massacre with maybe a few glimmers of hope.

Here's the thing I don't get about the Karrion Kross work/shoot stuff: What's the endgame here? When they did a similar thing with Punk in 2011 with the Pipebomb Promo and him "leaving the company" with the WWE Championship after Money in the Bank, it was awesome because, well, CM Punk was awesome in 2011 (and John Cena also played his role really well as the reluctant "Corporate" guy who didn't want any favors from John Laurenaitis [an avatar for Vince]). It was a great storyline that they, unfortunately, bungled within a few weeks...but the point still stands, for a brief moment, it was very compelling TV and CM Punk solidified his place in the main event that summer. Then, a couple years later, they do the whole Danielson story with him being "held back" by the Authority. Again, it was a flawed storyline in many ways and I'm not even going to get into the fact that the WWE went kicking-and-screaming into even running in as the main event of Mania that year. The point is, it worked because Danielson was mega-over and was consistently backing it up with the best match on the card for months and months - tags, singles, gauntlets, whatever. But Kross...Kross is not as charismatic as Punk or as good a storyteller in the ring. He's obviously not on the level of Danielson. He's not a beloved comedy character like R-Truth (who people didn't want to see released but didn't necessarily want to see pushed either*). Kross is maybe a C+ worker on his best day and probably wouldn't even rank in the top 20 on the roster for charisma (and that's without including women, which would probably push him into the upper 30s). They've given him PLE matches and none have been anything above good. At least LA Knight has had a handful of matches where you can see why he got over. Kross' online support seems to be entirely based on the idea that he was "held down" more than any real argument of his merits as a worker. And, often times, when you do hear someone make the case for him, its a wrestling-version of whataboutism (such as, "But Jey Uso also sucks and he got to win the Rumble!" or "Solo Sikoa has been pushed even more and even longer and also has boring matches"). But at the end of the day, you can't really argue that Kross deserves more just because there are other guys who are boring, or "all entrance," or overexposed. So what's the endgame? Karrion Kross returns as some sort of unsigned vigilante to attack whoever? And it will lead to an eventual match where he will, if history means anything, once again put on a dull, forgettable 15-minute performance? I mean, if you're going to run this sort of angle, do it with someone whose actually good at wrestling. * The sentiment with Truth felt more like people saw the WWE boasting about all this revenue and record-breaking attendance but then got cheap when it was time to re-sign a guy that was really well-liked.

Welp...there goes the record viewership. Tripling the price of the PLEs will effectively price me out of watching them and I'm sure I'm not the only one*. I also think, as much as there are certainly people who watch a ton of major sports and also follow the WWE, there are probably lots of people like myself who really don't follow sports enough to subscribe to a sports-centric platform like ESPN. At least with Peacock, you got the Dick Wolf-iverse, some good movie releases (still need to watch Phoenician Scheme), and the occasional great original series (AP Bio, Killing It, Paul T. Goldman, Mr. Throwback, Laid). At $10.99/month, it was basically the same as the Network cost-wise too. Obviously, from a business standpoint, the WWE is making HUGE money with this deal, but personally, this will force me to pirate the PLEs and/or go back to being someone who really only follows WWE by reading results online (which is basically what my fandom amounted from 2006-2014, post-college [when my buddies and I watched the PPVs at BW3's] and pre-Network [when I couldn't afford to order more than maybe 1 show a year]). On the bright side, with the company continuing to dig deeper and deeper into its MAGA Era and recycling feuds and storylines that I don't care about, there has never been an easier time for me to fully call it quits on being a WWE viewer. I'll miss Rhea, IYO, and Gunther, but even among that group, IYO and Gunther are basically just padding their resumes at this point and there's probably dozens and dozens of matches of theirs I haven't seen that I can watch on YouTube from pre-WWE. And because Blehschmidt mentioned AEW, I'll say this: If I'm HBO/Tony Khan this morning, I'm getting on the phone this morning and hammering out a deal to put the AEW PPVs on HBO MAX. I do believe that the WWE Network/Peacock deal played a key role in the WWE's success over the past decade and some of it had to do with the sheer ease of becoming a fan that the Network (and later Peacock) afforded. Like I wrote above, pre-Network, I was not ordering PPVs (maybe 1 a year), watching the TV shows regularly, or going to live events. I followed mostly online. Then, they made it so I could get every PPV for $9.99/month and access their immense library. I still never became a regular TV viewer, but there's no question that it re-ignited my fandom and that, over the next decade, through just my subscriptions, they made over a thousand dollars from me (I know, I know, drop-in-the-bucket) where, pre-Network, they made closer to 0. They made it so simple and so affordable to follow the product. Following AEW is still a little cost prohibitive, requiring either cable or an HBO MAX subscription, and those only getting you the weekly TV and the library. The next step is the PPVs. You add those and, with the basic HBO MAX plan being $9.99 (ad-free being $16.99), and HBO MAX offering a shitload of other consumer-friendly and appealing programming that the ESPN platform can't and won't, there could be a mass migration of wrestling fans in 2026. I mean, when this transition happens, there are going to be a ton of wrestling fans who are going to be left high-and-dry and scared off by the $30/month price tag of an ESPN platform they can't justify subscribing to who might look at HBO MAX, with its lower cost and significantly broader content, and consider making the jump (or are already subscribed but don't follow AEW because the WWE is their "go to"). Throw in the PPVs, which are routinely stellar, and the pendulum swings where it will be easier and cheaper to be an AEW fan than a WWE fan. * Unless this new platform will be bundled with my Hulu? Like Disney+ is? As far as I know, I do not currently have ESPN+ as part of my bundle.

I haven't watched most of the shows yet, but...John Cena is back to being a face, right? Ignoring the optics of the Lesnar return, to me, the WWE Creative/HHH/The Rock/whoever only being able to get 6-7 months of content, which was, *at best,* forgettable but at times outright Wrestlecrap (Travis Scott, the R-Truth fiasco), out of JOHN CENA TURNING HEEL is about all one need's to know about the WWE's creative direction and storytelling in 2025. I mean, say what you will about an ethically bankrupt, racist, misogynist, sex trafficker like Vince McMahon but he at least knew a decade ago that Cena turning heel was a creative dead-end. I won't put too much blame on Cena himself - in fact, I wrote many times after Mania that Cena deserves some credit for taking a big swing and trying to work as a post-modern "meta" heel, even as he was actively striking out - but it does go to show, you can't really half-turn if your whole shtick, for 20 years, was being the ultimate babyface. Cena tried, unsuccessfully, to "play a heel" within the parameters of the show but then do absolutely none of the work to "live" that character outside of it and so the audience could only play their part at booing him up to a point. And maybe a smarter, more clever performer would've been able to find a tone that could made this dynamic fun and entertaining. He didn't. At least not for longer than the occasional promo. His "heel turn" simply didn't go far enough and it fizzled out around June or whenever Cody returned to unremarkable/nonexistent fanfare, "Main Event" Jey Uso (who does seem to open a lot of shows for being a "main eventer," right?) and Logan Paul were weirdly and unfittingly in Cena's orbit, and all anyone could talk about was how awful the company was for releasing a Cena-adjacent comedy midcarder. So Cena's big heel turn, a storyline that should've been epic, ended up being a total nothingburger. People Power. The Nexus Invasion. Cole vs. Lawler and the Anonymous GM. The Vince Paternity mystery. Y'know...stuff that people remember more for "What Could've Been..." rather than what happened. I don't think you needed this storyline to help "make" anyone or put a new star over either, but Cody Rhodes is less over than he was a year ago and Orton/Punk/Jey didn't really benefit longterm from their bit roles in this saga either. (And it is worth noting, if they did want to at least sorta get someone more over with this storyline, even in a loss, someone like LA Knight or Damien Priest standing up to Cena would've likely worked, but hey, at least we all got to see a recycled house show match as the main event of Backlash instead). So now we get the old babyface Cena back to finish his career...but who even cares? Who even "missed" the "old Cena"? How could anyone? Babyface Cena only left for 6 months, a forgettable blip in his career and likely to end up being the punchline of a joke in his eventual HOF Induction Speech one day, nothing more.

TMZ is reporting that Hulk Hogan passed away this morning, at age 71, from cardiac arrest. It is getting picked up more and more.

I'm not sure if there's a word for it, but maybe its just pure brainwashing (?) when you push enough revisionism that even the people who experienced it first-hand think that getting fed to bigger stars or punished by jobbing for months on end is all part of a "grand scheme" to get someone over. Triple H eating shit after the Curtain Call and losing to Warrior at WrestleMania XII has become part of his origin story when, really, if we're being 100% honest, Triple H got a fairly big push in early-to-mid-97' because the roster was absolute shit and he was one of the better, more reliable hands on it (look at the Rumble participants in 97' and try to find someone else you'd even bother pushing). Then he ended up being a great foil for Foley that year and, in 98', breaks out as a babyface against The Rock. But really, and I'm far from a Triple H fan, what got him from the lower card to the upper card in 98' was the classic mix of being in the right place (a WWE landscape that was bereft of other options) and, to his credit, a ton of hard work in late 96' through 97' on TV and the house show loop against practically every established guy on the roster (from Jake Roberts to Goldust to Owen to Austin to Shawn to Bret to Mero, Triple H worked them all). But its easier to retroactively glorify the losing someone does or the bad gimmick they were dealt (Drew McIntyre in 3MB) as some sort of "trial by fire" because that takes the heat off the company and makes the company look omniscient. And we'll see this play out with Austin Theory any day now, right?