Triple H’s booking of WWE has officially entered its awkward adolescence. The honeymoon phase is over. The “Thank God Vince is gone” optimism has evaporated. And what’s left is a company that still looks good on the surface (solid production, a stacked roster, and a few world-class performers) but feels hollow underneath. For all the talk about Triple H’s long-term storytelling and “cinematic vision,” what we’re seeing now is a product built for big epic moments without the connective tissue that makes those moments matter.
It’s ironic, because the thing that once separated Triple H from Vince McMahon was supposed to be patience. Fans were promised a return to logical, consistent booking. Gone were the days of nonsensical rewrites and panic pushes. Yet, years into his run, it feels like the opposite problem. Triple H is obsessed with creating moments, but he’s forgotten that getting from point A to point WOW still has to be good.
When he first took over, everything felt fresh. There was a wave of excitement that swept through the fanbase. People were calling this “the new golden era.” Wrestlers who had been misused for years were suddenly being treated with respect. The commentary had energy. The camera cuts were toned down. Even the backstage segments felt looser, more organic. It was exactly what fans wanted after decades of micromanagement under Vince. But like any hype cycle, it eventually hit the wall.
The longer Triple H has been in charge, the more the cracks have shown. There’s a lack of pacing in his storytelling. The payoffs rarely live up to the promise. His big moments are too self-aware, like they were built for social media clips instead of the weekly audience that keeps the product alive. He wants to make fans gasp, but the path to get there often meanders or stalls completely.
Take The New Day’s recent heel turn. On paper, it was exactly what fans had been asking for. A new layer for a team that’s been doing the same act for nearly a decade. A chance to show depth. A chance to make people care again. But what happened? Within weeks, they were right back to doing goofy skits and pancake jokes. It’s like the company lost interest halfway through the story. You can’t just turn a group heel and assume that’s enough. There needs to be a reason, a mission, a story. Instead, it was a spark that fizzled before it even caught fire. Big E’s neck injury was used in vain.
Or look at John Cena’s heel turn—if you can even call it that. For years, fans joked that Cena would never go heel because of merchandise sales or PR optics. So when it finally looked like they were doing it, people were ready to lose their minds. It was a chance to rewrite a decade of “what ifs.” But then, in one promo, it was gone. Dropped without a trace, as if the company suddenly got cold feet after months of some of the worst, generic booking I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to take the “new creative era” seriously when it reverts to old habits that fast.
And then there’s Cody Rhodes, WWE’s supposed top act. The man who dethroned Roman Reigns, carried the torch, and became the symbol of this so-called renaissance. Yet right now, Cody isn’t in a meaningful long-term angle. He’s floating. He’s on the shows, he’s doing the media rounds, but he’s not in anything. There’s no story driving him forward. For a supposed franchise player, that’s baffling. Triple H has managed to make the company’s most popular babyface feel like a side character in his own show.
That lack of momentum bleeds into the audience. Ticket sales are down compared to this time last year, especially in markets that were red-hot during WrestleMania season. WWE always cools off a bit in the fall, but this is different. It’s not just seasonal fatigue; it’s creative stagnation. Fans can sense when a product is coasting, and right now WWE feels stuck in first gear.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying I enjoy this downturn. I don’t revel in wrestling doing poorly. Quite the opposite. As a content creator and columnist, I rely on wrestling hype. The less excitement there is around WWE, the lower my views are. When fans stop caring, my numbers drop and I’m a big numbers guy. I take pride that my columns do the kind of views that some of the top headlines do. I take pride knowing my name attached to a column means something. So when I criticize Triple H’s booking, it’s not because I want to see it fail. It’s because I want it to succeed again. I want wrestling to be exciting, unpredictable, and fun to talk about. I want fans to be happy.
I’m not one of those “rage bait” creators who feeds off negativity for clicks. If anything, I hate that side of the community — I’m not big on baiting our readers; they see through that. I’m reacting to what I see on my TV, and what I see is a product that’s lost its spark. WWE is supposed to be firing on all cylinders right now, heading into Survivor Series and building toward Royal Rumble. Instead, the shows feel like they’re just existing. Segments drag. Feuds recycle. Big stars are stuck in limbo. And the online buzz that once surrounded “Papa H” has turned into quiet disappointment.
Part of the problem is that Triple H still books like a wrestler. He understands how to make a match feel big, but not necessarily how to make a story feel cohesive. His pay-per-view cards look strong on paper, but they often lack emotional investment. He loves the idea of the “epic” match like two top stars going twenty minutes with dramatic near-falls, but he doesn’t always do the groundwork to make fans care why they’re fighting. It’s the cinematic equivalent of skipping the first two acts of a movie just to get to the finale.
Another issue is his reliance on nostalgia. Every time momentum dips, he brings back a familiar face or leans on a legacy act to pop a rating. Randy Orton, The Rock, John Cena—it’s a rotating door of “Remember me?” appearances. That worked in the short term, but now it’s catching up. Fans are noticing that the newer stars aren’t being built to replace them. When those legends leave again, the roster feels thin, not because of talent, but because the storytelling never made anyone feel essential. Even Jey Uso, who is the newest breakout star, coming from a tag team where you could barely distinguish him from his twin brother to a solo run as World Heavyweight champion, is lacking that same storytelling that brought him to the game in the first place.
You can’t sustain hype on nostalgia alone. That’s what Vince McMahon tried to do in his final years, and fans rejected it. Triple H was supposed to learn from that. Instead, he’s repeating the same mistake with better lighting and social media hashtags.
It also doesn’t help that the company’s tone has shifted from “we’re building something special” to “we’re maintaining what we have.” There’s a complacency in the air. You can feel it in the promos, in the production, even in the commentary. The passion that defined the early days of the Triple H era, when every Raw felt like it was trying to prove something, is gone. The show doesn’t feel hungry anymore. It feels safe.
And that’s the danger of creative comfort. When the people in charge believe they’ve already won the fans over, they stop trying to surprise them. They start booking for moments instead of momentum. It’s the difference between saying, “Wait until you see what happens next week,” and saying, “Remember that cool thing we did last month?” WWE has become addicted to nostalgia for its own recent past.
Fans are noticing. Social media reactions are turning sour. You can scroll through Reddit, Twitter, or YouTube comment sections and see the shift. People who once defended Triple H are now openly frustrated. They’re tired of the slow builds that go nowhere, the start-and-stop pushes, and the constant feeling that something bigger should be happening but never does. When even the die-hard defenders start to sound exhausted, that’s a warning sign.
It’s not that Triple H can’t book. He’s proven that he can when he’s focused. The Bloodline saga at its peak was some of the best long-term storytelling WWE has ever done. The problem is, that story masked a lot of the creative flaws underneath. Once it wrapped up, there was no clear succession plan. The rest of the roster felt directionless because all the creative energy had been funneled into one storyline for two years. When that ended, the air went out of the balloon.
Now, we’re left with a product that’s technically sound but emotionally empty. The matches are fine. The production is flawless. The crowds are decent. But the passion that defined the early “Game Era” is gone. Triple H has built a company that looks great in screenshots but doesn’t inspire conversation after the show ends.
That’s the real tragedy here. Because despite my criticism, I don’t want this era to fail. I want to be proven wrong. I want to write columns celebrating creative risks that pay off, feuds that feel organic, and storytelling that actually connects. I want to cover wrestling when it’s booming, not when it’s treading water.
The fan backlash isn’t coming from hate; it’s coming from disappointment. People wanted to believe in Triple H. They saw him as one of them: a fan who finally got to steer the ship. We all saw it in his NXT days. Maybe he had a different team of writers. Maybe the current main roster writers need to go. Maybe. But with each underwhelming story and each dropped thread, that trust erodes a little more.
Triple H doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. He just needs to remember why fans loved his vision in the first place. It wasn’t because every match was a five-star classic. It was because his booking used to mean something. The stories felt like they were going somewhere. Characters evolved. Wins and losses mattered. Now, too often, it feels like we’re watching a loop. Different names, same arcs, same patterns.
WWE still has all the tools to be great again. The roster is stacked. The production is world-class. The fanbase is loyal. But until Triple H starts focusing on the journey instead of the destination, those “epic moments” will keep falling flat. Because a great payoff only works when the road to get there feels worth traveling.
Right now, it doesn’t. And fans can feel it.
