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So, Triple H was advertised to be a part of WWE RAW. Dave Batista was, as one would expect, absent from the show this week. We thought that it would be a by the numbers segment when Triple H came out and thanked the WWE Universe for cheering him on during a commercial break. Nothing that we'd not seen before.
And then suddenly, from out of the blue, a major stipulation was added to the match at WrestleMania. We already know that this will be Batista's last match. Well, Triple H has wagered his career too and now the stakes are higher than they ever were.
Suddenly, it's not a contest between two old men taking away a spot from younger talent at WrestleMania. It's a match that could potentially bring two careers to an end.
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But why was this match made to begin with?
#5 Lack of build since the Ric Flair attack
I know how much the world was buzzing during Ric Flair's 70th birthday celebrations. Batista had come back from his Hollywood run and continued the angle that was set up at SmackDown 1000 when Evolution stepped out to the ring and Triple H had a face-off with Batista. But ever since then, the rivalry just seemed to fizzle out with every passing week, really.
I can talk about how WWE has not really done a good job in building up WrestleMania matches, but that's another topic for another article, truth be told. If one were to glance at the WrestleMania card, very few would call this the most exciting match. But adding a stipulation just changes everything quite significantly.
Is the match more exciting again? You be the judge of that, folks.
Sound off in the comments below.
#4 No title is on the line
There are a lot of matches that will be contested for championships at the 'Grandest Stage of Them All', AKA WrestleMania. It is easy to care about these matches because the WWE Universe wants to see whether the Champion is strong enough to overcome the challengers before him/her. This is especially true for Ronda Rousey who's taking on Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in the main event.
But there are literally no stakes at all for the Triple H vs. Batista match, and it would have been hard for the audience to care. Now that Triple H's career is on the line, things have picked up steam. This is a match with a lot of buzz and anticipation around it, to see how it goes.
The stakes are finally real and the match could go in a variety of ways at WrestleMania. Or will it really?
#3 Triple H is almost guaranteed to win the match
Growing up, my favourite wrestler was always Sting. I had always resigned myself to the fact that I would never get to see him in a WWE ring, because he did not seem inclined to ever come down to WWE owing to a variety of reasons (and few can blame him).
But when he did, I was thrilled to see a WrestleMania match with Triple H being confirmed, and I was certain that he would go over during the course of the contest considering it was his debut match. After interference from nWo and D-Generation X, Triple H would end up winning the match.
There are two kinds of matches at WrestleMania for Triple H if you actually look at it. He puts over younger talent like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins and loses to the older guys like Sting and in this case, Batista.
Triple H is almost guaranteed to win at WrestleMania and hence, his career won't be coming to a close anytime soon, I believe.
#2 Triple H calling it quits is a believable twist
I've been watching WWE and professional wrestling in general for twenty-six years now. And Triple H has been a constant fixture in my weekly programming for a majority of this time, truth be told. I remember him as Hunter Hearst Helmsley and then as a member of DX and then as a part of Evolution before he became a part of The Authority.
Triple H has done it all in the business, both on screen and behind the scenes as well. NXT is a global phenomenon right now, and it shouldn't be, considering it was always just WWE's developmental territory and honestly, little more. Triple H has little to accomplish in wrestling and little to prove to anyone, quite honestly.
Therefore, it's easy to buy into the fact that he's retiring from action. This believability played a big part in the stipulation being made official.
#1 Batista's part-time appearances
There is the age-old cliche that it takes two to tango. What this essentially means is that unless you have two men who're building a feud from the ground up, the audience may not care. Look at the feud that exists between Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar at the moment. While it was red hot soon after Seth Rollins won the Royal Rumble, it seems to have petered out in momentum.
As much as I hate to say it, Batista's part-time appearances have grievously affected this feud and have watered it down significantly for us.
Which is why Triple H had to shake it up with this stipulation to make us care again. And let's be honest, it's a pretty interesting twist indeed.
At the end of the day, I'm a lot more invested in this match than I have been in quite some time. Mission accomplished for WWE. Let's hope the match is good too!
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