Views From The Turnbuckle: How WWE Obliterated Logical Storytelling

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After the Royal Rumble somewhat predictably ended with Triple H booking himself to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, there was the expected amount of eye-rolling that came from hardcore fans. Despite the fact that WWE has filled their roster with plenty of young, talented stars looking to make an impact, WWE went with yet another part-time star from the "glory days" to come in and carry their most precious championship.

For the record, I thought in a vacuum Triple H did a really good job at the Royal Rumble. He worked really hard, nearly being eliminated several times but each time being able to cling onto the ropes, and the moment with the bully Triple H and the cagey underdog Dean Ambrose at the end of the match was well-orchestrated. When we look back at the 2016 Royal Rumble in several years, we will probably all agree that it was a very good show. However, wrestling does not exist in a vacuum and while the Rumble was a fun show to watch, the reality is that there was probably some serious damage done that night to the overall prospects of the company.

Triple H, along with Vince and Stephanie McMahon cut a very interesting promo to open Monday Night Raw following Triple H's victory at the Rumble. Triple H said that he was the ruler of the company and that is why he is the champion, and nobody can take the championship off of him unless he says so. This is essentially a shoot promo, since Triple H really is an executive of the company and nobody really will take the championship off of him unless he says so.

While we are keeping it real, while in storyline Triple H's victory was a success for the McMahon's, in reality it is actually a sign of complete and utter failure. WWE has had plenty of time to build up heels and let them work the way up to the main event and get over with the audience, but with the exception of the injured Seth Rollins nobody even came close. Who else could they trust at this point to be the foil to Roman Reigns? They tried pushing Sheamus into that role and the fans couldn't care less about him. In storyline Triple H becoming the 14x champion is a great success, but really it is only the culmination of booking incompetency that has taken place over the last 18 months or so.

Speaking of incompetency, Raw on Monday featured one of the most baffling gaps of logical booking comprehension in recent memory. During the opening promo, the McMahon family stated that they would be choosing wrestlers to compete in a number one contenders match at Fast Lane, with the winner getting to challenge Triple H for the championship at WrestleMania. Also during this promo, Triple H said that Roman Reigns wasn't ready (tell me about it) and he was only getting a shot at the title when Triple H said so, and the way he said it, you know that he meant he wasn't getting one any time soon. Well that turned out to not be the case because at the end of the show, literally just hours later, Stephanie McMahon somewhat casually announced that Reigns (along with Ambrose and Brock Lesnar) were going to be in the match at Fast Lane, with the winner getting a title shot at Triple H.

Think about this for a moment: For the last couple months the McMahon family has been doing all that it could to take the championship away from Roman Reigns, eventually rigging the Royal Rumble so that he lost the championship. As shown at the beginning of Raw, this was viewed as a tremendous success for the McMahon family because they had finally defeated Reigns and gotten their championship off of him. Despite finally attaining their goal, the McMahon family decided to inexplicably insert Reigns back into the title picture the very same night. It wasn't like Reigns won a #1 contenders battle royal and beat up a bunch of McMahon stooges to demand a shot, he just won a random tag team match and Stephanie McMahon came down and said "You're in."

If you were to ask WWE why they would make such a ridiculously stupid decision, they would probably just say that having Reigns in the title picture, even if they don't like him, is best for business and since Triple H, Vince and Stephanie are all about what is best for business, they begrudgingly have to accept that Reigns has to be a part of the tile picture. The thing is, it should never be about what the heel authority figures think is best for business. In 1998 it was clearly in Vince McMahon's best business interest to have Stone Cold Steve Austin be in the title picture, but McMahon never acted like that. He hated Austin because he threatened his authority and no matter how popular Austin became, Vince always wanted to tear him down and would never hand out free title shots to Austin simply because Austin was popular. This of course, was an extremely successful storyline and made the WWF a bazillion dollars. This used to be the case, but now we live in a time where the The Authority characters zoom in and out of kayfabe so much that the actual logic that seems to go along with booking is warped and suddenly very little makes sense to the viewer who takes the time to actually think about why these two guys are fighting in the ring.

We all know that where this storyline is leading, Triple H vs Roman Reigns at WrestleMania where Reigns defeats Triple H and wins back his championship. I suppose WWE has to get to Reigns vs Triple H somehow, but I think there are plenty of more logical, viable ways to get there than simply handing Reigns a chance to get a title shot.

Conspicuous on Raw was that nobody seemed to mention Reigns having a rematch clause, something that almost every champion of the last 10-15 years has had. On Monday, WWE seemed to forget that the rematch clause ever existed, and if they never mentioned it maybe they believed that none of their fans would think about it. I believe a better alternative would to have Triple H come out and say that he isn't going to honor Reign's rematch clause, and Reigns can go to court over it if he wants, but they will get tangled up in the legal process and that either way, Reigns is not getting a shot anytime soon. This would cause Reigns to go on the war path against Triple H, maybe he puts the entire League of Nations on the shelf, holds the show hostage, and repeatedly assaults Triple H whenever he as the opportunity. This forces Triple H to go nuclear, saying that if Reigns wants to do this so bad, he can have his rematch at WresleMania, and there Triple H is going to teach Reigns a lesson firsthand. Then Triple H beats the crap out of Reigns with a sledgehammer. This would logically create more heat for Triple H and more sympathy for Roman Reigns; handing Reigns a chance to get his title shot because he won a random tag team match doesn't create any heat for The Authority, nor does it generate any real sympathy for Reigns. I don't think that is a perfect idea, but I think it is a hell of a lot better than the route they are currently taking.

Obviously, I am nothing more than a fan who happens to write a weekly column on a wrestling news site. I don't really know all that much about what goes on behind closed doors in that company and how ideas are formulated and executed. I don't think my opinion is even as valid as someone who works inside the industry. I can however say that as a fan, I am extremely frustrated with WWE's inability to come up with logical explanations for most of the things they are doing, which is sad because this is a company that used to be better at that than anyone else. I don't think anyone outside of the most loyal WWE supporter would deny that they have had trouble creating in new stars, and I personally believe that the ignorance of logical storytelling is the biggest contributing factor to that issue.