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WRESTLING COLUMNS

I Think I've Seen This Before
May 23, 2005 by Jason "Xtremefalls" Simmons


Last year in 2004 everyone was saying that year was going to be the year of Chris Benoit. The plan was Benoit would win the Royal Rumble - done. He would then go and beat HHH at WrestleMania 20 - done, after winning a great Triple Threat match, and then be the Champion and star of RAW. Well the last part never happened; he was the Champion but was never the star of RAW. Benoit would wrestle HHH at least five more times on TV and PPV, pretty much leaving most of the wrestling world once again bored with the same old thing. Benoit would lose his title to Randy Orton at SummerSlam 2004 in a decent match with just one problem: it had very little build up, while the HHH match with Eugene was built up to the sky. You think that was the only time" Hell no; Benoit vs. Kane at Bad Blood and took a back seat to HHH once again as HHH beat HBK in a Hell In A Cell match, this time not even being in the main event. Benoit was then knocked down to midcard level, only doing a tag match at the next PPV.

Randy Orton was the next victim. Orton picked up a lot of steam after a great feud with Mick Foley, coming to an end at Backlash in the match of the night in a Hardcore street fight. Orton would bring some prestige to the Intercontinental title after a decent 8-month reign. Orton won a Battle Royal and would go on to beat Benoit, which posed the question, what was next" People who follow wrestling knew the plan for WrestleMania 21 was Orton vs. HHH for the title but there was one big problem with that. The night after SummerSlam he beat Benoit in a rematch on RAW only to have Evolution with HHH destroy Orton. Which was the first mistake. Orton was a heel for over a year by that point and was all of a sudden supposed to be a face, and even though he had the face reaction, sometimes he never got the reaction they were hoping for.

Now on to the second huge mistake. Orton would go on to face HHH at the next PPV, Unforgiven. The problem was instead of putting Orton over or at least making it a DQ (considering there was a ridiculous amount of interference during the match), Orton was pinned and lost the title. Why was this a mistake" Orton was having a lot of problems trying to get over as a face and also had a lot of critics saying he shouldn't be champion yet, and having him lose sucked out all the steam the guy had. By the time the Elimination Chamber came most fans hated Orton and most were tired of the feud already, which saw HHH win the belt back (after it was vacant for a month just so he could win it back.) So what was next" We headed to the Royal Rumble with, by this time, rumors that they were going to do a triple threat match with Orton vs. HHH vs. Batista. That night another match between HHH vs. Orton ended with HHH once again winning, but had Batista win the Royal Rumble. After a few weeks it was obvious Orton was out of the title picture and Batista was the new person to put in that slot.

In the weeks leading up to this, Batista and HHH were on a rocky road with accidental mistakes by both men and fighting, but always Batista came back. The question though was if Batista was going to go to SmackDown! after winning the Rumble. They handled the Batista turn the way they should have turned Orton - having him slowly build his character up. Anyone with brains would have had Orton beat some challengers at a few PPV's and then turned him at the Rumble or before. Anyway Batista vs. HHH was set for 'Mania and Batista won the match. We thought 2005 would be the year of Batista. Well so far that's been another lie.

We had Batista vs. HHH at Backlash which I can get - they needed a rematch - but now that it is over and we're on RAW ready for something fresh and it hasn't happened. Batista is just like Benoit; shoved behind HHH so HHH could go do a big "I'm quitting" angle and leave RAW for a few weeks. Which is kind of funny to me because I saw the ratings for RAW this week of May 16th, 2005 - it was a 4.3 which is the highest in a while. Isn't it funny knowing HHH wasn't going to be on, fans turned into watch RAW" Anyway it is already known that at Vengeance 2005 we will see Batista vs. HHH in a Hell in a Cell match. Which begs the question: how many darn times do we need to see HHH vs. Batista before the WWE once again kills another wrestler"

I get HHH is a McMahon, but you know how many times must they fail before they get that it is killing off their fan base" You know HHH was made the main star in 2002 and if you check business numbers they have taken a slide from there to now and it's sad that everyone sees it but them. Its funny how even though the ratings slide, the business goes down, there is nothing but negative comments from former WWE workers such as Billy Gunn, who said just the other day HHH is a back stabber, but the WWE decides to blame their rating problems on people who have nothing to do with it.

The main problem is HHH, though in my opinion he doesn't care about the fans or the company, he only cares about making himself look good. He doesn't help the show and doesn't help the younger talents. I mean just look at the list of people that he crushed in the last 3 years alone: Orton, RVD, Booker T, HBK, Kane, Benoit, Goldberg, and it looks like Batista will soon be apart of that list. I'm sorry but it amazing how Batista, unlike Orton, has gotten monster pops from the fans, is really over, so don't you think they should move him to a different challenger instead of fighting the same battle over and over again against HHH"

The problem the WWE has is that they need to realize the reason HHH was popular in the first place was mostly because of other things not HHH himself. DX is a big reason that started to finally get his character over, then the McMahon's got him in as the big heel and then Austin, Rock, and Foley carried HHH's character. So now that none of them are really around anymore, HHH's weakness is showing.

What's next for Batista" Hopefully after he beats HHH at Vengeance he will move on to a feud with a Jericho, or maybe Orton after he comes back. Maybe they should make HHH put a young star over making him bigger, hell at least pay back wrestlers who were put HHH over. Until next time...

by Jason "Xtremefalls" Simmons..


Erkka J�rvinen wrote:
Oh what a bummer...i thought that finally someone made a column with a lot of HHH involved and NOT to flame HHH. I liked this column and i gotta agree that HHH is getting stale because he got nothing to do BUT you can SHUT THE HELL UP about his talent. Triple H was over with the fans on DX, he was over with the fans as a heel and he was over with the fans on 2002. Now it's not HHH who is the one deciding the matches, its none other than Stephanie. Triple H has earned respect by jobbin like hell in the 97-98 and bustin his ass off in various of matches but then a punk like you comes and say "he doesnt care about the company". I was going to comment this column non-objective but i can't when i saw your disrespectul comments about TheGame. Good column but i couldn't enjoy it due to your ignorant hate towards HHH.
Jacob Kuhn wrote:
Well, I can say I have to agree with you about the HHH overkill. I didn't like the idea, however, as Orton as a face nor as World Champion. He was way too young for the belt, and way too arrogant to be a successful good guy. Some wrestlers just can not have face charisma no matter how much they try.

Batista seemed to become more popular with the fans because he became a class act. While HHH and Flair were doing some pretty sleazy things, he always seemed to obviously disapprove of their actions. Although he remained a member of Evolution, Batista started to get a lot of fan heat. Generally, when this happens with a heel, WWE makes a mistake and ruins it. Shawn Michaels was a hot heel, and WWE turned him into an annoying face and he of course lost his following. The same happened with Orton. For the rare instance, it did not happen with Batista. Batista kept the basic same attitude when he switched from heel to face.

WWE is started to ruin Batista, though, in other ways. Yes, you are 100% correct that pushing him into a pointless feud with HHH is one of those things. Also-as is commonplace for heels turned face-Batista is losing his dominance. While he was gaining momentum in Evolution, Batista was demolishing his competition. Now, he is getting his butt kicked throughout the matches, to only come back at the end. If the industry learned anything from Bill Goldberg, wrestlers remain hot even when they are running through their enemies.

If Vince is a smart man (ironic statement, I know) then he will do what's right in this instance and continue the push with Edge. With the recent reunion with Lita, Edge is becoming the hottest heel in WWE. It would be smarter to leave the belt on Batista and push these two into a feud. While HHH is stale, Edge is on the rise. We dislike HHH because we see him so much, but Edge is just pissing people off.

Well, we'll see what happens. Just wanted to say that you wrote a good article.
Huthaifas wrote:
Man, I am tired of HHH being blamed for everything. You know why he is on top, because there are no true challengers to the throne. There is no Rock, There is no Austin, and there is no Foley. There is not a star out there that delivers what Hunter does. There is no one who instantly make his opponent a fan favorite like Hunter does. You say he is McMahon, that is true, and just like Vince, he can put people over just by standing on the opposite side of the ring as them. Orton and Batista are upper echelon, thanks to Hunter. They bust their butts as well, and were able to connect with the crowd in ways that Billy Gunn and the rest of DX couldnt.Benoit has no mic skills,even though he may be the best wrestler on the planet(as long as Angle is on Mars), but he cant carry a storyline.The only wrestlers on the roster right now, that can entertain in the ring and out of it are Eddie,Kurt, and maybe Jericho.But even they cant turn a jobber in to a main eventer like Hunter does.
Matt Galpin wrote:
You had some good points in the article, however you fail to see that the WWE is an enterprise rather than a company. HHH is the future. He always will be. You call him a liar, a backstabber - I call him a great businessman. I am not arguing for the sake of it, we just have very different opinions, which is why I am sending this email. After coming to this website and reading an article that one of your editors posted "Has the internet destroyed wrestling"" I have come to the conclusion, yes it has. Because the internet is a place for people to express their opinions and over time, people get influenced from people who hate a certain wrestler, etc and they lose interest. That's why the WWE is failing. Dont get me wrong, I worship RAW and HHH. But when I read your article and you said the WWE thinks their ratings are bad because of the fans and not the wrestlers, that is true. Look at it this way, if the WWE listened to their fans opinions, they would get hundreds of different ideas that alot of different people may not agree with. That is why they stick to writing their own storylines, and don't encourage fans to send in their ideas. It would create havoc inside of a huge company. They do a great job at running their business, hence they are worth billions. So, my opinion is, HHH is a great wrestler because 75% of the fan base hates him. And they are supposed to hate him. So obviously he is doing a damn good job at being a bad guy if he can get under people skins like he does.
Michael Nader wrote:
I was reading some of the things written here and i think both sides are right and both sides are wrong. HHH haters, you've got to realize (unless im mistaken) there is no official proof that

A. hhh is asking the writers to use him this much.

B. stephanie is doing all the booking so hhh is in every main event.

C. Vince is telling the writers to make his son in law the star of the show. or

D. The writers are trying to kiss macmahons ass by writing hhh into every storyline.

HHH fans on the other hand have got to realize that we hhh haters aren't mad BECAUSE of one those four scenereos that MIGHT be occuring, we are mad because whatever the reason, we are watching a match between some guy(s) vs. HHH for the millionth time, and quite frankly it's getting old. Now maybe i don't speak for everybody who hates hhh, but it may not be hhh's fault, stephanies fault, or vince's fault, but it is SOMEBODIES FAULT that this problem (and yes it is a problem) is occuring. i know the wwe can't please every fan out there, but it should at least try to please the MAJORITY of them out there.
Jason Xtremefalls Simmons (original author) wrote:
I Saw this coming people OK first off to Erkka J�rvinen I respect your opinion but face the facts HHH Rings skill's have been under par when he got all big, I mean hell look at the 2002 King of the Ring HHH vs. Undertaker was without a doubt the worst Match I've seen in years. HHH jobbed because he was introuble for the MSG Kliq good bye.

Jacob Kuhn See he got the column it wasn't just a blantant attack on HHH it was a warning abut how HHH hurts WWE.

Huthaifas One the reason there isn't any new Rock, Austin or Foley is HHH genius I mean look all of the establish talent are squashed by HHH, and all of the younger stars look bad by the end of the feud. The fans like anyone that isn't HHH because NEWS FLASH there tired of his stale act. Batista is over because of Evolution and Orton isn't over period he half face, and heel. OK one DX was over more for X-pac, and New Age Outlaws not as much as HHH. Benoit doesn't need the microphone that isn't his character that's the point he is the tough son of a ***** who could beat anyone. HHH is Stale on the Microphone to and he isn't even that good either. HHH hasn't turned any Jobber into a main eventer.

Matt Galpin I know that its and enterprise but i think some one in that company should have the brains to notice the trend its not rocket science, you know i used to like HHH but you know theres always rumors about him and you know someone got to figure a lot of it most be true. also Matt the WWE is not worth Billions anymore trust me. 75% hate HHH yeah one its probley more two its different hate its bad hate its the kind NWO got in 1999 when fans were tired of it, its bad heel hate.

Michael Nader What he said proves he gets the point I mean hell look at Raw this past Monday HHH comes back and names himself the number one contender why"""", he lost to Benoit in the first round of the gold rush tournament, has lost 2 straight matches against Batista and lost why does he deserve a title shot" I mean Wrestle New Live said it best "Simon Dean can't go out there and say I'm the number one contender, its just stupid and repetitive. I'm telling you people now there will probley be a HHH vs. Batista 4 or Batista will lose the Hell in the Cell which is sad.
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