By Richard Gardner, Torch specialist

Randy Orton was the hottest star in wrestling when he won the Royal Rumble. In following weeks the WWE made every effort to re-establish him as their top heel in a feud with the McMahon family that culminated in Orton administering his finishing move on Stephanie McMahon. This set up a feud with Triple H, who for the first time acknowledged that he had married into the McMahon family.

The feud was already personal, but it took a turn into darker territory on Monday night. In an angle echoing the Brian Pillman/Steve Austin gun debacle in 1996, Triple H broke into a mock-up of Randy Orton's house and went on the rampage with a sledgehammer. If the WWE wishes to market its product to kids, then this was a strange way to go about doing so. The angle was indicative of the demographic no man's land which the WWE currently occupies.

Who was this angle actually aimed at? It may have been too violent for children, but it certainly wasn’t edgy in the way of storylines from the "attitude era". The actress who played Orton's wife is hardly going to win an Emmy for her role in the angle, but as she screamed in terror whilst Triple H broke down the Orton family door with a sledgehammer, it became plain that a real fiasco was on the cards.

Triple H then went running around the house as only he can; bumping into random people whose presence was never explained, screaming: "Where is he?" The action cut from one conveniently placed camera to another, smoothly documenting Triple H's Steven-Segal-like performance. The scenario ended with Hunter throwing Randy Orton through the living room window onto the front lawn, and being dragged away by the police.

It's often difficult to criticize storylines until they have fully unfolded, but that certainly isn't the case here. The WWE's attempt to take the Orton-Triple H feud to another level was heavy handed and at times bordering on slapstick. The acting was atrocious and the writing was lazy; it was never explained why the Orton's had so many people in their house at that time of night. There were cameras in every room that Triple H walked into as well as on the front lawn, leaving the viewer in no doubt that they were watching a wrestling angle.

Kayfabe is dead. Any pretence that feuding wrestlers hate each other in real life was abandoned many years ago. Yet this does not mean that all rules of logic can be thrown out of the window. Suspension of disbelief is an important aspect of any fictional television show, and WWE programming is not exempt from this.

For two hours on Monday nights, wrestling fans should be able to sit down and enjoy the escapist entertainment that is WWE Raw without being confronted with colossal plot holes. Heading into low-budget action movie territory does not do anyone any favors, particularly Triple H and Randy Orton who are more than capable of holding their own on the microphone, without resorting to the silliness that we saw on Monday night.

WWE does not seem to understand their target audience. The angle did not seem to be aimed at children, but at the same time the execution of said angle was far too cheesy to be enjoyed by a mature audience. To dismiss the WWE product would be remiss, as there is plenty to enjoy in the run up to WrestleMania; Shawn Michaels' first confrontation with The Undertaker was superb, as was Chris Jericho's interaction with the WWE legends.

But the main title feud has been handicapped by terrible booking, and horrible execution. There is nothing wrong with the WWE adopting an episodic method of storytelling; in fact having more cliff-hangers may help retain casual viewers. But the WWE creative team does not seem to be properly planning from one week to the next, illustrated by Randy Orton's attack on Triple H on Smackdown after making a big deal about there being no contact between the two until WrestleMania on the previous episode of Raw.

Randy Orton was the hottest star in wrestling. At this point in time, it is difficult to see how this feud with Triple H will have helped him in any way, even if he does win at WrestleMania.

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