5 WWE Stars Botched in 2025 By Triple H

For all its impressive talent that would classify as the best wrestling roster of all time, WWE manages to bumble into some shocking botches when it comes to booking that roster. 

This is especially true in the Triple H era of WWE creative. What started with a bang and leaned heavily into the Roman Reigns-led Bloodline saga has since spiraled. Major historical hiccups like the John Cena heel turn and Travis Scott at WrestleMania have since balanced the scales. 

But it's the smaller fumbles that really add up. Flick on a weekly show and it's not hard to point at one or two mid-botching characters or storylines that could be doing much better right about now. 

And everybody could agree on the postboy for this topic right now, right? Yeah! 

Here's a look at the wrestlers most-botched by Triple H this year. 

Bayley

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It almost feels like Bayley is good to appear on this list every other year at this point. 

That's not a knock on Bayley, either; it just seems like WWE often doesn't know what to do with her. That's an especially glaring thing for her to suffer through when it seems so consistently apparent that they need her at the very top of the women's main event scene. 

Before this new gimmick recently, Bayley spent a chunk of this year messing around with the tag-team scene and at times brushed shoulders with the women's intercontinental title. But those were very few and far between. 

In fact, arguably the most notable thing Bayley might be known for in 2025 was the odd saga around her getting pulled from the WrestleMania 41 card. 

We've seen Bayley bounce back off plenty of lists like this in the past. But surely, Triple H can do more for a Grand Slam champion.

R-Truth

Georgiana Dallas/WWE

What was that all about?

WWE creative rolled R-Truth into the John Cena retirement tour pretty notably, which made a lot of sense, given the history there. 

Then things went off the wildest of rails. 

Right after his big moment with Cena, Truth was one of the many cuts by WWE. Intense fan backlash led to him actually coming back and getting involved with Cena again, then appeared to be hot-shotting up the roster with the Ron Killings persona. 

Then…nothing. 

Killings/Truth hasn't been seen in a ring since July and frankly, it's a little jarring to see WWE actively ignore something that had massive fan interaction. Usually, the bookers are all over that type of momentum, but especially not dropping it entirely. 

Randy Orton 

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Quick…name Randy Orton's last match. Who guessed it was more than a month ago in a tag match on a random night of SmackDown? 

How about Orton's big SummerSlam match? 

It included a guy named Jelly Roll. 

That's about how things have gone for Orton in 2025, which is a shame. Fans were very well-versed on the injury and health stuff going on with The Viper that seemed to imply he only has so much time left in the ring after seemingly being lucky to come back at all. 

Sure, Orton had a one-off with John Cena for the undisputed title at Backlash this year. But the fact it was a one-off and nothing much grander and fitting of their broad history actually did him a disservice, too. 

We can run all the way back to WrestleMania 41, where his match was that brief moment with Joe Hendry that ran all of 3:10 match time. 

Given what fans know about Orton and the apparent timer on his career, Triple H not doing better by one of his guys is pretty shocking, to say the least.

Drew McIntyre 

Mike Owens/WWE via Getty Images.

Drew McIntyre is slowly, painfully turning into that big villain with an accent of old that WWE calls when it's time for a babyface champion to get a win in a grueling feud. 

And that's a huge shame. 

McIntyre was the guy a few years ago who took down Brock Lesnar and was the very top of the food chain in WWE. He's cemented his status as a top guy, yet one could argue WWE has spent more time lately on weird main-event pursuits like Damian Priest and Jey Uso. 

It stinks to see McIntyre boxed in like this. The latest culprit was WWE calling his name so he could eat the loss to Cody Rhodes at a Saturday Night's Main Event in a match that a middling-title-run Rhodes didn't really need to win. 

It has been like this for a while now, too. McIntyre has lost to Randy Orton, been involved in the Jelly Roll match and feuded with Jimmy Uso. He's being used in all sorts of filler-like ways that aren't befitting of what he can actually do and we're a long, long way removed from that amazing months-long feud with CM Punk now.

LA Knight

It sure feels like the crowning of LA Knight will just never happen. 

Whereas guys like Jey Uso got massively over with an entrance and audience interaction and were rewarded for it, Knight has done the same and…just sort of been hanging around and doing stuff. 

Wildly enough, Knight can run circles around Jey in the ring on a nightly basis and is better on the mic, too, so why WWE pushes some guys to title wins and not others is one of those head-scratching things even the decision-makers might not be able to explain. 

That's not to say Knight hasn't had some successes. But winning a couple of U.S. titles and a Slim Jim Battle Royal doesn't seem to mesh with just how over he is and how good he is in the ring. 

WWE doesn't seem to mind calling up Knight when they need to make Jey, Bronson Reed, Damian Priest or Bron Breakker look good. But that's more like Dolph Ziggler treatment than what Knight should get, and frankly, Triple H and WWE know that.