Since August, it has been clear that one of the matches planned for WrestleMania 33 is Seth Rollins vs. Triple H. The Game interfered in a Fatal Four Way match that determined the new WWE Universal Champion. Kevin Owens won the match, and has been champion since, but he got a ton of help when Triple H hit Rollins (his now former protege) with the Pedigree. Rollins has been calling him out for weeks, and the night Triple H finally shows up, Rollins gets injured. Without a clear idea on whether or not Rollins will be able to make it in time for the “Show of Shows,” should Triple H have another opponent, or miss the show altogether?
WrestleMania has always been a huge show, but now with the brand split, there are dozens of Superstars that have justified claims to be on the card. Between Raw and SmackDown Live, there are four men’s singles titles, two Women’s Championships, two Tag Team Championships, and a Cruiserweight Championship. If the Royal Rumble is anything to go after, the main show (and of course there will be a two-hour kickoff show) will only be championship matches, along with Goldberg vs. Lesnar and Big Show vs. Shaq. That alone is 11 matches for one night of wrestling, unless they ignore the mid-card belts.
Triple H is an undeniable legend, but should a potentially pointless match take precedence over wrestlers that have been competing week in and week out? In order to determine whether or not a Triple H match could be this important, we have to look at his potential opponents.
There are two rumored opponents floating around for The Game: Samoa Joe and Shane McMahon. While Samoa Joe wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, he could just say he was attacking Rollins for his own reasons and he doesn’t want HHH ordering him around. Shane McMahon is a more story-friendly option, but the in-ring action could be lacking. The SmackDown roster outside of Shane O’Mac isn’t feasible, and no one on Raw has enough of a hatred for the COO that anything could build in under two months.
If Triple H had to compete at ‘Mania, the best option would have to be Shane McMahon. Last year, Vince McMahon said he wanted competition between brands to essentially be violent and all-out, which gives this a good SmackDown vs. Raw angle which always provides interesting match-ups, like Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 21. There is also the family tension of being brothers-in-law, so they could play that up just like they did with the father-son relationship of Shane and Vince.
That’s probably the best case scenario, but does it have enough of a case to take away from something else? Looking at WrestleMania 32, there were 9 matches on the main card (8 if we’re excluding the six-second match between The Rock and Erick Rowan. As mentioned above, we need 11 matches for all the championships to be put on the main show, so if 9 is the magic number, that means we’ll already have to cut two.
Which two matches should be cut before we even think about adding Triple H’s match? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to difficult to decide. The Cruiserweight Championship has been given a lot of attention lately, but it’s on the low end of the totem pole in terms of importance and legacy. The second match would have to go to the championship that just doesn’t have any focus, and won’t likely have focus until after WrestleMania: the SmackDown Tag Team Championships. If Elimination Chamber is any indicator (and it sure is,) the lack of credible teams in the division has led American Alpha to have a pretty empty title reign so far.
The only way Triple H vs. Shane McMahon would fit on the card after the two match cuts is if we move the United States Championship match to the Kickoff Show, which only seems possible if Sami Zayn captures the belt from Chris Jericho. Whatever storyline they could come up with doesn’t seem justifiable enough to kick another championship match to the pre-show, and it doesn’t seem like Triple H is dying to get back in the ring. Unless Vince McMahon has something amazing up his sleeves, it seems like the best idea is to just keep The Game out of the ring this year.
