10 Milestones of WWE's long road of decline

#3 Triple H's Reign of Terror

From this moment until WrestleMania 21, Triple H ruled Monday Night Raw with an iron fist, with only brief intermissions. On the one hand, this was understandable. Stone Cold Steve Austin had retired, The Rock had left, other big stars from the Attitude Era - The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, and so on, were on SmackDown.

And yet, those two and a half years signaled an unmistakable creative decline of the flagship show. SmackDown was easily the better of the two shows during this period, but as we intimately know, that show's ratings depend on how well Raw does.

On Monday nights, Triple H wasn't quite the same superstar that he was from 1999-2001, when he did his consensus career best work. He also no longer had babyfaces like The Rock and Austin to play off of.

The result was many lackluster angles (most infamously with Scott Steiner and Goldberg) as the company built up Randy Orton and Batista beneath Triple H's sway. Both of them would become big stars, even if Orton flopped after his initial turn on Evolution, but the damage had been done. This period marked the beginning of WWE's modern obsession with "heat," which has siphoned much excitement away from the programming, as there's so few people to cheer for.