HHH And Friends
The start of 2011 was a
great time for WWE, probably their best TV since the Attitude Era. You had the epic CM Punk leaves Raw storyline, the five star match vs. Cena at Money In The Bank,
THAT CM Punk promo
... and then HHH decided it was time to make Raw fun again.
First, you had HHH inserting himself as the referee in the John Cena/CM Punk title unification match at SummerSlam, which Punk won when HHH counted the pin despite Cena's leg being on the ropes (which never really got mentioned again, because why not), followed by 94 year old Kevin Nash making things fun again by crushing everyone so that the charismatic Alberto Del Rio could be champion. (By itself, this would be a questionable booking decision, given that you had the hottest **** in a decade happening and nobody was really tired of it yet.) You can pick up that action, apparently recorded by the only man in the arena who thought that was a great idea, here:
Naturally, instead of having some sort of rematch or triple threat match, HHH decided that the thing to do would be to fire Kevin Nash and give himself a match against CM Punk with his title of COO on the line, while Cena cashed in his Cena In The Bank rematch against Del Rio. (WWE Investor Relations could not be reached for comment as to what would have happened if HHH lost). Naturally, HHH won this match despite interference from Executive Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis, Nash, Miz, R-Truth, and Loki and his giant metal dragons. (Okay, I made that part about Loki up.)
Over the coming weeks, HHH fired Nash, Miz, R-Truth, Booker T (butnah), and Vince McMahon (in what can only be described as an egregious violation of the WWE organizational flow chart), leading to a vote of no confidence from the WWE roster... and their eventual going on strike.
Which left HHH all alone to entertain the masses the next week -- which is obviously what the fans were clamoring for all along.
Well, all alone except for John Cena, whipped-into-submission Sheamus, and CM Punk, who was really really excited to get a new addition to his wardrobe:
The angle was sort of brought to an end when Vince decided to fire HHH mid-match, and replace him with John Laurinaitis
which at least led to a few so-bad-it's good moments over the coming months. Nash eventually kayfabe injured HHH to finally get him the **** off our TV screens about three months after the angle started. And so WWE had descended from pipe bombs to just bombing in a few short months.
Was it all worth it?