On top of that, he was basically retired anyway. So who fucking cares?

He benefits from being in the same “class” as Austin, Rock, Taker, Foley, etc. through the Attitude Era and then due to retirements (Austin/Foley) and moving on to other things (Rock) he became the “bridge” between to the next era. Without an Austin to pass the torch, and the guy that Rock passed the torch to (Brock) splitting within the year, HHH became the de facto current “top guy” with Taker, Hogan, HBK having short runs or setup with other things to do. He could have helped elevate the likes of Booker, RVD, and Kane instead of cutting them off at the knees but many would argue none of those were the right guy to get the nod. He cemented Batista as a top talent, and should have been able to do the same with Orton if not for bad creative (we’ll never really know how much of a hand HHH had in that though). Someone said it further up, he’s had a really interesting career.

If anything, he served as a great foil for the real stars.

Also, NXT guys not going anywhere on the main roster often has little to do with their own ability, and triple h's eye for talent. Its a wrestling themed nickelodeon show, and its a crapshoot whether anyone is used effeciently.

Absolutely correct that wwe overstates his impact, but that has led many fans to be so turned off by him, that they understate his impact. Like, that factually incorrect tweet on the last page.

Damn.... HHH is gone..... DX will always be my favorite faction/s. My favorite wrestling memory is DX attacking WCW.

The understating is to act as a counterbalance in the force.

I mean I'm definitely heaping on the shit because I really don't like him and he's one of the reasons I stopped being a committed fan. But he definitely opened things up with NXT and probably stoked a little bit of the AEW flame. Just as an in-ring performer, I can't wax all that nostalgic about him other than some late 90s stuff and that excellent 2000 run he had.

Last Triple H match I enjoyed was vs Bryan at WM30.

I grant that Bryan can work a great match against anyone but it was in no way a carry job, Hunter worked his ass off in that one too and they told a great story. Made Bryan look awesome in victory but then a beatdown after that didn't feel like it was Hunter just trying to regain heat, if anything it just increased the hype for the main event more because it was like "oh shit, they are actually gonna have Bryan be the ultimate underdog!"

Benoit tapping out Triple H was one of my favorite moments of fandom, it got ruined a few years later, and WM30 helped give me that moment back in a way.

I like the Bryan match, too. The problem is, for everyone one of those, there are about 5 of his drawn-out horseshit matches that go too long because he's obsessed with making himself epic. Fuck, I remember deciding to watch that awful match he had with Reigns where the audience looked on in sheer silence as 2 men engaged in acts of wanton mediocrity for over 30 minutes.

You need to be excellent to pair up with the greats and make money, and that’s what he did, continuously, for many years. In terms of his look, presentation, in ring ability, everything, he was an 8/10 guy and the best heel in the business for long stretches.

He is a far better overall package than anyone working in the WWE today (bar potentially Brock). It’s hilarious to build up someone like Roman Reigns and talk about this half decent heel run (a run after 5 years of torture and woeful returns), while talking down the best heel in the business at the hottest time in the business. One that did it for so many years against so many different opponents.

He understood psychology and what it was to get a response from the crowd in matches and he did it against HBK, Foley, Undertaker, Austin, Rock and peoplle paid to watch it every single time.

His error was something that all top guys fall into in the wrestling business, it’s ego and protecting your own spot and pushing for decisions which are counterproductive (RVD, Booker T, strangle hold on title), but that doesn’t take away from the performer he was and the presentation he had.

A top guy, and one that the greats of his generation were probably delighted to have had as a protagonist when they reflect on their careers today and see what’s out there.

Yeah, triple h doesnt excel as a star in any one area better than his peers, but he does a little bit of everything better than most. I have similar feelings about Charlotte Flair.

As for his in ring stuff, I actually enjoyed most of his work, but his style is slower and definitely not for everyone. Even though I mostly like it, I have to be in the right mood for his style.

Lol our very own M-A-G has gone on record of saying it was the last match he ever watched. WrestleMania 32 was so bad he's never watched another second of wrestling since.

If I had 2 favourites, it'd be Versus Jericho in that last man standing at Fully Loaded 2000 where even though Jericho lost, HHH actually made him look strong (a far cry from their match at Mania 18).

And of course, the street fight with Cactus is a masterclass.

I think to the casual or maybe a better term would be "trending" audience of Triple H's major run he's an absolute legend. I think in reality to any wrestling fan he should be considered a legend as well.

There are lots of wrestlers in history who've worked their way into power positions with companies. Monsoon, Bruiser Brody, Dusty, Cody, Gedo, Muta, Michael Hayes.... Sure it's not all the same story as Triple H, marrying the daughter of the boss. But HHH likely would have been on the same path regardless of Stephanie. He'd have still main evented Mania's and been a multiple time champion.

I think of him almost exclusively as a heel, I can't even remember any time he was a baby face that I "liked him". But as a heel he had a lot to offer. To the casual he was just a bad ass hor type character that dominated, to the internet fan he was a the ultimate snake in the grass conquering every battle in the booking room before it ever got to the ring!

Ton's of classic matches and programs, a plethora of them. Thinking of his series of matches with The Rock, Foley, Austin, Taker, Shawn, Angle, Danielson... some really classic stuff.

Then you have NXT which if you really take the time to think about it was amazing. I was in a regular work environment in my day to day once several years ago when I learned that like all of my co-workers were rabid NXT fans. They didn't care much for WWE at the time but LOVED NXT. So weird. This was around the era where Bailey and Sasha main evented the Barclays Takeover. There was a group of people in their late 20's early 30's that were total marks for NXT. It shocked me. They were just regular people, not ashamed of their love for NXT because they didn't really even know that much about wrestling and how bad it could be.

NXT was a real force in wrestling when it started and got really big really fast. Vince really fucked Triple H by not letting it continue and build a new audience for wrestling. Vince has elements of his product that are better sure, but Tripe H was taking wrestling to the next level and Vince really just shushed him.

It's fucked up. And now WWE will always be the same, when Vince is gone it will be an even worse version of Vince's vision, someone trying to book like him. Triple H would have taken it to the next level if he had taken the company.

The triple threat match against hbk and stevie richards at wm20 is the greatest triple threat match of all time

2000 HHH was the perfect hybrid. Built like a brick shithouse and he could move quickly enough that his methodical approach didn't bore me.

Then he put on too much size and was never really the same. I remember in that meaty 2000 era, his punches were incredible.

That was a good'n. Couldn't believe my eyes when H jobbed to the Stevie kick. Never knew you could tap out to knockout strike.

I remember the one time I heard a girl talk about wrestling at school post-2000. She said she stopped watching because of Triple H. She hated him. This was when he was a babyface in 2002.

Overall, wrestling never needed him and the WWE acted like they did. Jamming him into that spot for years on end has done more damage than a good match with Bryan at WrestleMania can repair.

Triple H had the luxury of presenting NXT as pro-wrestling for a while. He used that to get himself over as some savior, even though he never would have worked with so many of the guys he pushed there in his actual run. It was a great little vanity project, but Raw nor SmackDown, at their length, were never going to be managed like a one hour NXT. And talent were not going to be coddled to like he could down there. And that created a reality vs. expectation schism that Vince takes all the criticism for, but Triple H didn’t seem to actually prepare a lot of guys for the main roster.

:y::y::y:

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Steven Richards may have been an odd choice to put in that match but at least it wasn't during his Pegasus Kid run. That would've been way too distracting.

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I swear to Lzzy, virtually every minute of that show seemed specifically booked to piss me off and that main event finally broke me. Oh, the fans aren't buying Roman Reigns? Well clearly that's only because he hasn't been presented with the honor of headlining WrestleMania with the great HHH and one of his 30-minute snoozefests!

Triple H just had to jam himself in front of that record attendance, didn’t he?

What the fuck else happened at that Mania? I remember the Women’s Title was introduced in Charlotte, Becky and Sasha and Zack Ryder winning that Ladder Match.

Is this where The Rock “beat” Erick Rowan?

The League of Nations beat New Day. It’s all slowly coming back to me.

WrestleMania without Triple H was better than WrestleMania with Triple H. Triple H was in a World Title match for five straight years. Then when he’s gone they crack 1 million buys again.

2008 goes above 1 million with Triple H kind of shoved in as an afterthought, but when he’s front and center again in the 2009 main? They’re back under.

Let’s not forget his crowning achievement of fucking up CM Punk’s push because he was obviously jealous someone he didn’t like was getting over.

The summer of HHH

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Didn't that culminate in a ladder match between him and fucking Kevin Nash, which had to have been someone's idea of a sick joke?

Yeah. Triple H wasn’t even a heel for all this.

HHH was definitely at his best when he was paired with Chyna. Terrific pairing.

Triple H said that going forward he is in development of talent in NXT. If I was him, I'd retire. Why be away from home and kids just for office work? He'd made a fortune, enjoy it, forget about the circus for a while. Maybe not forever but man take a few years.

Punk shook Hunter’s hand on the way out the door but also told him that he still resented him for what he did in 2011. Can’t say I blame him.

Hilarious that Punk going over Hunter at WM30 was supposed to be an angle that enticed him to stay.

love the idea of HHH trying to sell how beating him was some kind of honour.

:y::y:

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"I don't need to work with you. You need to work with me."

Triple H standing as the fallen hero in the ring after losing to Brock at SummerSlam while the crowd chanted “You tapped out!” was an amazing moment.

The fact that he still felt the need to triumphantly get his win back and make Brock a “50/50 booking” guy was insane.

I think this is a fair statement.