Brock Lesnar and Triple H: Why Evoking the Past May Reinvigorate Their Feud

Sometimes ideas that look great on paper fail to achieve their promises. This is an accusation that can be levied at the feud between Brock Lesnar and Triple H.

The WWE must have been very confident when it paired the two former champions together, as the company's advertising campaign has described this match at SummerSlam as being the biggest match since WrestleMania.

This is a big claim, as it dismisses the talents who work for the company every week in favour of two part-timers.

WWE's faith in the two men's drawing power has meant the feud has lasted nearly three months, with only a handful of interactions between the competitors. The rest of the time has been filled in with sporadic appearances from Paul Heyman as Lesnar's manager and video packages, and this has left the whole feud feeling overlong and underdeveloped at the same time.

Unsurprisingly, many fans have lost interest in the feud.

It has become essential for the WWE to get its fans reengaged with this feud. This was always planned to be the headline feud for SummerSlam, as Vince McMahon wanted Raw 1,000 to have a strong card, which would naturally take away from the main summer pay-per-view.

It would be especially disappointing if SummerSlam underperforms, as Lesnar was deliberately brought in to increase interest from more casual fans.

Unfortunately for the WWE, the company has left itself with few options to entice the audience's attention. Lesnar was originally brought back as an unstoppable "war machine," but a loss to John Cena at Extreme Rules and then Triple H fighting him off at the 1,000th episode of Raw has paid to that avenue of promotion.

The chance to promote the match as a battle of ill feelings has also passed the WWE by because the feud has been going on for so long. There is no doubt that Lesnar did break Triple H's arm, but that healed some time ago, and "The Game" has been active since.

There is the legal battle between the two sides, but that always felt like filler to explain Lesnar's absence from television.

Some may even say that there is more heat between Triple H and Paul Heyman after the former ECW impresario bad-mouthed Triple H's family. The appearance from Stephanie, Triple H's real-life wife, was set up to get the match with Lesnar, but the intensity was far more evident when Heyman was in the spotlight.  

The one option that might reinvigorate the audience's desire to see the match is to remind the WWE universe of the time just after the brand split in 2002. This was a time during which there was real competition between the shows, and the WWE had two distinct rosters.

The Raw brand had Triple H at the top of the pile, dominating the likes of Booker T, Kevin Nash and Rob Van Dam, while SmackDown had the relative newcomer Brock Lesnar, who was holding off strong challenges from Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle, Big Show and The Undertaker.

Many people theorized over the outcome of a battle between the two dominant forces, but the match never came to pass, as Lesnar left the company before the two men could be drafted onto the same show.

It was one of the big unanswered questions of that time.

If the WWE can tap into that well of unresolved feeling, then people's interests in the bout may be rekindled. This could be done with the dreaded video highlight reel or through some kind of interaction between the two stars in the ring for more impact.

However the WWE chooses to promote the match between Brock Lesnar and Triple H, it is essential that the company does something to add interest in the match.

Otherwise, the WWE may find itself very disappointed when the buy rates come in next week.