Time to Grade the Game:

Critiquing WWE’s booking since Triple H got the pen

Every year since 2021 during the Road to WrestleMania, and shortly after, Tonya has contributed some thoughts about WWE. (To sample some of her previous work, check here.) You can find her at @TheWitchMilitia on Twitter.

Triple H, also known as Paul Levesque, took over as head of creative in WWE in July of 2022, with his official title being Chief Content Officer. Since then, he has essentially become the corporate talking head for the company. For better or worse, WWE is seen as his, even though the company is owned by TKO Group Holdings. So every single action taken by WWE is seen by fans as a Triple H decision, be it booking the shows, marketing, hirings/firings, and even booking venues and ticket prices.

I wish to delve into the creative direction of WWE since Triple H took this position. While this article will mainly focus on my personal opinion, my good friend Rob has crunched numbers on key differences and similarities between the old guard (Vince McMahon) and the new. The most interesting point from reviewing the data is that all major titles are defended significantly less now than they have been for years under the old guard. (Rob: Non-Big 4 PLEs have shrunk from 7 matches per show in 2022 to 5 per show last year and now 4 with this year’s Elimination Chamber show. That no doubt is a big reason why there are less frequent defenses, but you gotta figure HHH has some hand in that decision.)

There is a delicate balance one must make with presenting champions. I feel Triple H has dropped the ball with this, especially for the two top champions, Cody Rhodes and Gunther. I can understand wanting title defenses to feel special but both their reigns have been infrequent in defense, especially Gunther. He rarely main events any show he appears on. He has only main evented RAW and SmackDown, in a title match or otherwise, twice since winning at Summerslam. (Rob: by contrast, Cody has been a participant in the closing segment or match 15 times by my count since WrestleMania 40, and gets far more TV every week than Gunther does even when he was on the shorter two hour Smackdown last year).

As for Cody, I have previously examined the issues I have with his reign. However, I will reiterate that I overall enjoy his reign. Much more than Gunther’s actually. At the very least, Cody has had a substantial fued with a rival. At times, Gunther’s direction has seemed aimless. Although, there is potential in making Jey Uso his main rival. Gunther’s championship run feels less thought out than any other top champion, male or female. (Rob: Gunther has only defended the World twice on a PLE since winning it at Summerslam while Damian Priest had four PLE defenses in two months less time and one less PLE).

As for the women, Tiffany Stratton has been tasked with carrying the WWE Women’s World Championship and leading the SmackDown division. Charlotte is her test at WrestleMania, to see if she can carry that much weight. I am not sure if this is a too much, too soon situation. I don’t think Tiffany or WWE know how to have her character be a baby face. And it also feels like WWE did not anticipate Charlotte being booed, which is an out of touch position to be in.

The Raw Women’s division deserves its own article as does the mismanagement of the women’s tag division. Bottom line, WWE needs to get over their new found phobia of having Rhea Ripley wrestle on a regular basis. There are too many women on the roster for Liv, Naomi, Bianca, Bayley, and Nia to oftentimes be double booked for weeks while your BRAND NEW mid-card women’s champions, one of which is great at physical comedy and the other a wrestling goddess, barely see time in the ring.  (Rob: Naomi and Bianca have wrestled 9 and 7 matches respectively across all three WWE TV brands this year while Rhea will have her third match on March 3.  Bayley has also worked 6 matches across all 3 brands and Liv and Nia have worked 7 and 6 across Raw and Smackdown respectively.) 

This is not only an issue with the women’s division, mind you. It is just worse. Too many people who hold titles see very little progression. The top of the card is stacked and takes priority, of course, but it seems like too much time is given to angles that go nowhere in particular. For example, the New Day turned heel in early December, garnering monster heat. Since then they have not had a featured match or appearance on a PLE or special event. They are in a seemingly inconsequential feud with LWO, far away from the tag team titles.

Speaking of tag team wrestling, someone who loves it more than myself can articulate the issues there more than I can. But Rob’s data notes that mens tag matches get booked on PLEs less now while women’s tags are mostly the same. This is because, in my opinion, the women’s tag champions are also among the top of the division while the men’s are not. (Rob: Since taking over HHH has a little over half as many men’s tag team matches as Vince did during his last 2.5 years in charge, 19 vs 33 by my count. There were 12 Women’s tag matches on PLEs under Vince’s last 2.5 years and 13 for HHH up until now. The womens’ tag team belts’ booking depends entirely on who holds them. Bianca and Jade defended or won them on five out of seven PLE from May through November 2024 while the other teams that held them since HHH took over defended them four times total)

As most hard-core fans realize, overexposure in wrestling is a common occurrence. Sometimes fans just get bored with a character or angle that they feel overstay its welcome. It feels like Triple H has an issue with prolonging angles past their expiration date. The best example is the Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan feud. I am not of the opinion that the length of a feud determines its quality. Long term storytelling is tricky because you run the risk of being repetitive or making things convoluted. Both of those occurred with Liv and Rhea’s story. (Rob: Another example, on the men’s side, would be Chad Gable’s 11 month pursuit of the Intercontinental Title that ended with him turning heel and still not winning the title.)

My final major complaint of Triple H’s booking involves representation for Black and Brown talent. This week, he literally took the title off of Bianca and Naomi, his only Black champions. As it currently stands, every champion on the main roster is ethnically white except for the men’s United States Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura and the men’s Speed Champion, Dragon Lee. (Rob: I covered some of this here.)

When asked about the lack of representation in the booking for PLEs and major angles, Triple H proclaimed that he “doesn’t see color”. I would urge him to get an operation to fix that because his so-called color blind booking has excluded most of the Hispanic, Asian, and Black talent from being in pivotal roles. You can’t book what you claim you can’t see, darling. It’s atrocious. Fix it. Immediately. 

So I will take a break with my criticisms to highlight what I feel Triple H has done well. First and foremost, it feels like more talent has the freedom to interpret their characters’ promos and actions for themselves. There is also never any point where I feel like a segment was written to humiliate a talent. The language of the commentary team feels more natural and enjoyable to listen to. It does not feel like Triple H resents the audience.

PLEs and special shows do not feel overhyped and under delivered. The match order does not feel crafted to make the women’s math the bathroom break. You know what I mean. I am far more optimistic about watching the next WWE show, even if I did not enjoy everything, than I ever have been in the last ten years of watching. 

Overall, I enjoy watching WWE more with Triple H as the booker. I watch more now on a weekly basis. He has gotten better at booking weekly TV than he was in NXT, even though his biggest weaknesses remain. And these weaknesses certainly will not be fixed by doing another evil authority figure story; I don’t care if said figure is the Rock.

The road to this year’s WrestleMania will become clearer after Elimination Chamber but I fear I have to echo the sentiments of a large portion of the IWC: I am not that hyped for the show yet. I want to be. I do not think the build is a complete lost cause. I am disappointed in the booking for nearly every champion and I do not think the things I have an issue with will get any better in less than two months. But the show is probably going to be enjoyable, but not really memorable (make me eat my words, Hunter!). (Rob: I agree, but I think it’s important to note that last year not only had the Rock been involved since January 1 but we as a collective were still buzzed over the returns of CM Punk and Randy Orton after being gone for years.)

If I were to grade Triple H as head booker so far, I would give him a solid B plus. Actually, it’s really a C minus but I couldn’t resist the joke. In conclusion, while I think the weekly TV has improved since 2022, there are major issues with the presentation and how time is split among the roster. Triple H is in a blessed position to have so much top notch talent that makes up for what he lacks creatively. But how long will that last???