Tracing Triple H and Stephanie McMahon's Evolution as On-Screen Power Couple

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon's hold on WWE has only gotten tighter as they have evolved into more unsparing beings.

Fans who stopped watching Raw and SmackDown sometime around the early part of the 2000s may be shocked to find that the McMahon-Helmsley Era is still going strong, albeit a mature mutation of it. McMahon and Triple H still rule the WWE onscreen, but they are a more chilling force today.

In 2000, McMahon and Triple H took over as storyline owners of the company.

They were brash, defiant and had egos that would make Kanye West blush. WWE portrayed them as kids asked to captain a multimillion dollar company, kids who abused that position and gloated about it every chance they could.

Both of them used their place in the company to win and retain championships.

McMahon won the woman's title with Triple H and D-Generation X's help in March of 2000. On April 17, 2000, Chris Jericho defeated "The Game" for that title, but Triple H coerced referee Earl Hebner to reverse the decision.

That's a key difference between the McMahon-Helmsley Era and the reign of "The Authority." Those two once focused on capturing gold for themselves and have now moved to deciding who will be their representative as champ.

Behind the arrogance and nepotism, this was a story about love.

McMahon and Triple H were often seen grinning at each other, holding each other closely and being obnoxiously happy together. This served as a means to humanize them, but it also created a crack in their defenses.

The way to get to Triple H was to go after McMahon.

Kurt Angle began to fall for her, leading to a match at Unforgiven 2000 where McMahon hit Angle with a low blow. Angle's flirtations with her riled Triple H up, having him lose focus. Nine years later, Randy Orton hit McMahon with a DDT and kissed her in front of her husband.

This made the couple more vulnerable, more penetrable than they are today.

Even at the height of their power, they were just as often victims as attackers. Jericho and The Rock often took verbal jabs, once making her leave the ring crying on SmackDown. She wasn't safe from Steve Austin's "what?" routine either.

Today, there aren't Superstars making fun of the couple. There is little resistance from the roster as a whole. There is certainly no one giving McMahon a DDT.

Their positions on top felt more tenuous back then with enemies like The Undertaker, Mick Foley, Jericho, The Rock and Austin all pushing back at their dominance.

Since then, we've seen Triple H and McMahon become almost untouchable. Aside from Big Show's revolt, there is far less danger pointed at their authority. Times have changed in a number of ways, though.

McMahon has gone from a gleeful, screeching princess to a more serious corporate villain. Triple H has made a similar transition, trading in leather jackets for suits.

It's as if we've watched these characters grow up. McMahon slipped out of the spotlight for some time and made more appearances at charity events and press conferences than Raw. The McMahon-Helmsley faction had morphed into a legit business partnership.

For a brief time, fans saw both McMahon and Triple H serve as authority figures with no hidden agendas. 

This segment from earlier this year has them seem like far more reasonable people.

They seemed to be simply playing out their real-life personas, mirroring their real-life corporate roles. Triple H could be baited into a fight as Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar or The Undertaker proved, but he was no tyrant.

That changed after SummerSlam 2013.

The heels who fans despised a decade earlier were back, wearing a different skin and being even more irksome. They proved that the scariest villain is the one who believes he's doing the right thing.

McMahon and Triple H are now self-righteous and, at times, unfeeling, but they seem genuinely convinced they are doing their duty. They once took pride in their selfishness and now boast about their attempts at selflessness.

Every action they take is inspired by what they think is "best for business."

Triple H didn't ban Big Show for life because of his personal feelings toward him; he did so because he felt that the giant was wrecking the stability of his business.

Triple H and his wife used to come off as spoiled brats put in charge which is plenty infuriating. They've now become something more disconcerting, something more realistic.

Executives willing to skirt the rules, bypass morality and shift the puzzle to benefit their companies are certainly not relegated to fiction. 

That's what makes watching the injustice and heartlessness that have become hallmarks of The Authority's regime so powerful. It speaks to the audience's frustrations in the real world.

Just about everyone has to deal with overbearing, pushy bosses, but let's hope that no one has to deal with supervisors as wicked as McMahon and Triple H.

Whether she's been "comforting" Goldust after his loss or telling Orton to be his old, more vicious self, McMahon has been a fang-bearing beast. 

She shows a confidence here that wasn't around 10 years ago. She and Triple H were braggarts, but theirs always felt like a false bravado. Their newest incarnations of their characters have them self-assured to the point of having a God complex.

When McMahon and Triple H were first given control of the company, they were toying with it, having fun on top. They are now fiercely protective of the WWE, two insane executives where two brats used to stand.