Quoted By:
When WWE fans saw the shocking debuts of Io Shirai and Dakota Kai at SummerSlam 2022 under the management of Triple H, we thought the women's divisions would be on the rise again. After all, Triple H was the mastermind behind the success of the Four Horsewomen in NXT while the main roster was still doing 5 minute Total Divas matches based on fake fights from the "reality" show that was pre-taped months in advance. He stopped Io Shirai from going back to STARDOM in Japan, so there's no way he would fumble the bag, right? Wrong.
We started things off with the Tag Team Tournament that was actually made to look like a big deal. The preliminary rounds got plenty of time, and the commentators did their best to make the titles feel important as they did in 2020 when Sasha Banks and Bayley held them during the Thunderdome era. The match between Damage CTRL and Alexa Bliss and Asuka was the best tag team match we had seen on WWE programming in YEARS! Then, it went all downhill from there.
Toxic Attraction had to be pulled from the tournament due to an injury sustained by Gigi Dolin, and the Smackdown bracket winners ended up being Raquel and Aliyah, who weren't connecting at all with the audience. Triple H decided to give the tag titles to them instead of a hot Damage CTRL. A few weeks later, he attempted to fix his mistake and put the belts on Damage CTRL when he saw that it wasn't working with Raquel and Aliyah. After that, Damage CTRL were treated as flunkies who spent most of their screen time selling bad offense from babyfaces who get no reaction. They quickly lost all of their initial momentum from their debut and the first few weeks of the tag team tournament. This mistake never ended up being corrected and continued for several months. Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai went from being a promising tag team to Power Ranger putties taking beatings for Bayley.
