An Injury Handed A WWE Part-Timer A Win That Led To A Dead End Storyline

In a perfect world, every pro wrestling storyline would have a beginning, middle, and end, with a conclusion that, if not altogether satisfying, would at least be definitive. Alas, it wouldn't be pro wrestling if there weren't thousands of wrestling storylines that didn't fall flat on their face, leading to them being dropped with either a haphazard ending or no ending whatsoever. During the latter days of disgraced WWE Chairman Vince McMahon's rule over WWE, storylines being dropped seemed to be an even more common occurrence than usual. It was so common that even top stars, such as McMahon's son-in-law Triple H, wasn't even immune to storylines starting and then stopping.

In the spring of 2013, Triple H found himself wrapping up a year long feud with Brock Lesnar. Lesnar had defeated Triple H at SummerSlam 2012, prompting "The Game" to contemplate retirement before eventually returning to defeat Lesnar at WrestleMania 29, leading to a third and final match a month later at Extreme Rules. There, Lesnar defeated Triple H and also kicked off Triple H's next storyline by injuring his jaw. In the moment, it seemed like nothing, but that changed the next night when Triple H faced off against Curtis Axel, who like Lesnar was represented by Paul Heyman. For most of the match, it seemed like a way to give Triple H some momentum after a PPV loss. But then he kept selling his jaw and eventually displaying concussion esq syndromes, and despite dominating Axel most of the match, was ultimately forced to forfeit, giving Axel the win.

In theory, this finish set up two things; it gave Axel a win over a major star, and it began an angle that truly kicked off a week later, when Triple H attempted to wrestle Axel again, only to be blocked by his father-in-law and his wife, Stephanie McMahon. A week after that, Triple H attempted to wrestle Axel again, only for Vince to step in once more, leading to the match being restarted and canceled several times, with Triple H at one point trying to circumvent things by making it an Iron Man match. One can't help but note that, while Axel was technically winning these matches (before they were restarted, rescinded, or however one wants to describe it), he effectively didn't matter at all; he was just the guy that worked over Triple H's jaw in one match, and frankly, even then was still on the defensive most of the time. So it came as no shock that Axel ultimately didn't get any more over than he already was.

Perhaps that would've been different had the storyline continued on, or had begun at SummerSlam, as was reportedly the original intent. Instead, just a couple months after the whole thing began, McMahon and Triple H found themselves as allies after Triple H screwed Daniel Bryan out of the WWE Championship at SummerSlam, kicking off The Authority storyline. Axel meanwhile found himself as a foil to CM Punk, though even then he found himself pushed to the background in favor of Ryback. Ultimately, the Triple H injury angle was forgotten about shortly after The Authority angle kicked off, and Curtis Axel may as well have been forgotten as well, eventually settling into a midcard and then lower card role for the rest of his WWE tenure, the victory over Triple H doing nothing to help his career.