The Wrestling Backfire: Triple H Isn't Egotistical As Many Fans Believe (John Cena, The Rock, Stone Cold, Brock Lesnar)

The Wrestling Backfire: Triple H Isn’t Egotistical As Many Fans Believe (John Cena, The Rock, Stone Cold, Brock Lesnar)

by Kyle Fitta on July 30, 2012

There are many fans, myself included, who are irate at the way WWE’s utilized Brock Lesnar up to this point, especially on last week’s Raw. Many people are blaming HHH’s ego to why Lesnar didn’t get the upper hand in their battle, but I just believe it’s the nature of the beast. To clarify, WWE’s been known, especially lately, to treat their heels inferior. These days, the only heels they use are the cowardly ones that must cheat to win. There’s nothing wrong with cowardly heels, but it becomes one-dimensional. After all, the purpose of pro-wrestling is the illusion of it being real, but there are many different types of antagonists in the real world. The last monster heel that was a big hit was Brock Lesnar, though even he wasn’t able to triumph over top-level babyfaces without shenanigans. In fact, WWE’s fear to put heels over their top faces without a cop-out reason has always been their Achilles heel. Therefore, it had nothing to do with Triple H’s ego.

Actually, a lot of things have nothing to do with Triple H’s ego. There are many things we can say about Vince McMahon, but we can’t say he isn’t all about business. At least in his point of view, he always does what’s best for business. In fact, he’s about it so much that he doesn’t even have shame in embarrassing himself or his family, which makes the Triple H married himself to the top statements more asinine.

Don’t get me wrong: Triple H did marry into some benefits. Although it’s an unsolved mystery to how many championships he would’ve won, but he wouldn’t have this kind of power backstage if it wasn’t for his wife. However, the primary reason to why Triple H remains on TV isn’t because who he married. It’s because Vince McMahon realizes that Triple H’s a cash-crop, as his merchandise sales and reactions are still on par with any other superstar today.

There are plenty of funny criticisms that Triple H receives, but none’s more absurd than this one. The one I am talking about is, of course, the “Triple H would’ve never been champion if it wasn’t for Stephanie McMahon” one. In 1996, there was something that happened called the Certain Call. I’m not going to go much into detail about it, but Triple, HBK, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall “exposed” the business (even though it was exposed a looonnngggggg time ago before that). Since Nash and Hall were leaving for WCW and HBK was the figurehead, the only one who suffered was this inexperienced, not-so good midcarder named Triple H. Luckily for his sake, he wasn’t fired for it, but he was buried for it. Instead of quitting, HHH sucked it up and then improved immensely in every shape and form.

In 1997, HBK, Rick Rude and Chyna created one of the most controversial but influential stables ever, DX. A year after HBK took time off for an injury, Triple H was given the ball as the champion WITHOUT BEING WITH STEPHANIE MCMAHON and ran with it by solidifying him as a top-star. Oh and by the way, before that he was only in DX, a 1997 King of the Ring winner, European and Intercontinental Champion, and made guest appearances on the Drew Carey Show and Pacific Blue. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Another funny thing people say about HHH is he was never on the level of The Rock or Stone Cold….as if it’s the most terrible thing in the world. Frankly, it’s like saying the Rolling Stones were never the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Just because he wasn’t the biggest star of the late 90s/early 2000s doesn’t mean his contributions weren’t instrumental. Furthermore, saying he never drew in 2000 as a champion is like saying heels don’t draw period. The average fan does indeed pay to see a heel; they pay to see the him lose and plenty paid to see him do just that. Besides, the “he never drew as champion” argument is flawed, especially when talking about WWE. Ever since McMahon Jr. took over, there have been only two years the company’s lost money 1995 and 2002-2003 (XFL debts), which means everyone who was a long-term champion generated a profit aside from 1995. Plus, it’s not really about whose the champion anyway. It’s more so about the direction of the company and how hold/cold it is.

The last counter argument I’d like to make is HHH doesn’t put people over. It’s funny people can say that in spite of him having a losing record at Wrestlemania. Even counting when he started dating Stephanie, his record is still 5-7, with his most notable losses being to John Cena and Chris Benoit because he tapped out for both. Just like every other main eventer, HHH jobs accordingly. If he jobbed to every rising star, he would be a midcarder. Triple H has put over his fair share of wrestlers in the past. In fact, out of WWE’s top-tier talent they’ve had, he’s been one of the most willing to put over young wrestlers. Even in his over-the-hill days, Hulk Hogan would’ve never put over Shelton Benjamin. And, unlike some, Triple H wouldn’t quit the company if he had to put over a rising wrestler if McMahon asked him to :cough: Stone Cold :cough:.

There’s no denying that Triple H has an ego or that his marriage has helped his career. Every wrestler has an ego, though. There aren’t many wrestlers who believe they’re not that good and thus doesn’t deserve a push. Every wrestler wants to be on top. Not many wrestlers come into the business with their main priority being to put others over. They want to be the guy, have all the money and the glory. Without question, he earned his top spot through dedication and hard work, not just because he married the boss’ daughter. Additionally, something I believe many fans don’t realize is trust’s more important than talent. It doesn’t matter how great a wrestler is at his craft if he’s untrustworthy. And not only does Triple H excel at his craft, he’s a part of the McMahon family, making him more trustworthy than anyone else on the roster. *That* has more to do with his handful of title runs than him fulfilling his ego. The game has a cerebral mind for this business and understands how it works, so if you’re someone who believes Triple H tries to bury a rising star that could help the family’s business just to satisfy his massive ego you’re truly living in a fantasy world.

Tags: attitude era, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, cm punk, hbk, HHH, hhh's ego, john cena, kevin nash, Raw 1000, scott hall, The Rock, Wrestling Backfire, WWE

Kyle Fitta

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Kyle Fitta has been writing about sports and wrestling for over 3 years on various websites. Occasionally, Kyle's articles will touch on mature subjects, so if you suffer from heart disease, depression, eating disorders, or have any other mental or physical problems, please be aware you're reading at your own risk. Viewer Discretion is Advised. If you have any questions, comments or want to talk to me, email me at kjfxxxo9@aol.com.

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Steven Gepp

That’s it. You defended HHH. You are now officially fired from the IWC. Hand your card in at the front desk on your way out.

Mind you, this was a good article and an excellent examination of the argument. Damn it, you’ve convinced me! Still, he does seem to balk at being told Mick Foley helped his career…
Cynical Bastard

Personally, I’ve been a HHH fan for a long time.

He’s had his time as a dominant (and yes, sometimes TOO dominant) champion, but he’s also done more jobbing than people credit him with. Frankly, anybody else who got buried the way he did after the MSG incident probably would have quit.
James Alsop

Good points, though.
James Alsop

“There’s no denying that Triple H doesn’t have an ego nor his marriage hasn’t helped his career.”

I’m not not confused by this sentence…
http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/insider/kjfxxo9/ Kyle Fitta

Double negatives for the win.
Mike Gojira

Good points.

I could’ve sworn the reason Austin quit was because Vince wanted him to job to Brock on Raw without any build, similar to how Hogan put over Goldberg on Nitro.
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flamingwombat

This article is full of more truth than the IWC can handle. HHH probable helped make more stars than any other upper carder in this era, and it’s funny when the ignorant ones blabber about him never jobbing.
MetalFrenzy

Cm Punk begs to differ.
Mike Gojira

Most of the negativity stems from the early half of the last decade. Honestly, I haven’t heard many complain about any recent burials.
Michael L

I think a lot of HHH hate comes from his 2002-2003 run where he went over quite a few guys and made them look bad doing it. Sometimes it was justified–sometimes not. Let’s look:

Chris Jericho: HHH returns from his quad injury to win the Rumble, and the storyline should have been pretty simple—HHH looking for revenge on Jericho for putting him out of action. Instead, Jericho gets sucked into the McMahon family drama and ends up looking weak. It didn’t help that the WM match followed the epic Rock/Hogan encounter and as such wound up coming across as a solid match that the fans didn’t care about.

HBK: About the only guy HHH put over without question, at both Summerslam and Survivor Series where HBK won the title in the Elimination Chamber match. HHH got it back though.

Scott Steiner: HHH has a war of words and non-athletic encounters before the two finally had a match at Rumble 03. Those two stunk up the joint to the point where the fans were booing both guys. Steiner clearly wasn’t ready to come back yet–and somehow they stretch the feud out to two PPVs because that was what was programmed, rather than calling an audible and getting HHH set up with someone who could actually work.

Booker T: Those two wound up being in the midcard for WM19. The buildup was HHH talking about how people like Booker were not main eventers. Some attributed it to racism, but I think he was simply talking about WCW stars. HHH wins by delivering a pedigree after which you could have ordered a pizza between the move and the pin, and yet Booker still loses.

Kevin Nash: At this point, it was pretty much impossible to make Nash look good.

Goldberg: HHH somehow manages to survive an Elimination Chamber, despite stories of his real life injury. He drops the title to Goldberg only to get it back a few months later in a triple threat with Kane. However, it was clear that Goldberg wasn’t sticking around.

I’d say this was the worst period for HHH, and sometimes the criticism is justified (Jericho, Booker), but to what extent was it due to HHH and what extent was it due to the booking committee? In too many instances, HHH was paired with someone who either had no business in the ring (Steiner, Nash) or was too much out for himself to do the company long-term good (Goldberg).
http://twitter.com/Kanta_Mizuno Ryan Alarie

Of course, there are a few things conveniently left out:

There was a monster heel that was able to go over a ton of faces without needing to rely on cheating (although sometimes doing so) and didn’t run away or back down. That was HHH. His victories against Booker T, RVD, Jericho, etc, etc, etc (i.e. the people he was accused of burrying) involved him going over clean despite not only being a heel, but also being shown as strong throughout most, if not all, of the feud that led to the match. Heck, the lead up to the Booker T match at Wrestlemania was borderline racist in tone, implying that Booker T’s “kind” couldn’t hang with HHH. And HHH was proven correct as Booker T never even got close to getting the upper hand.

Now, the “HHH doesn’t put people over” period was a very specific chunk of time. Once he put over Batista, it was the start of a period where HHH did start putting over younger talent and losing to people that weren’t already established as being higher in the pecking order. However, there was a long period between winning his first WWE title and putting over Batista where the booking seemed to be extremely interested in protecting HHH at all cost. Now, this may not have been about HHH’s ego as it was an attempt to make due with Rock and Austin being on the way out, and wanting HHH to take the spot as head of the company. (I.e. HHH was that era’s John Cena, being put over way too strong not by his own choice, but by company mandate).

There was the sudden end of the HHH/Steph/Angle love triangle with HHH going super-heel (thus leapfrogging Angle as top heel, since HHH was becomming sympathetic as the potential cuckold) by revealing himself as the mastermind behind Rikishi’s attack on Austin (admitedly, Rikishi’s heel turn flopped, so they did need someone else to take over the feud with Austin). There was the entire HHH/Jericho relatioship which, apart from a match that was striken from the record, Jericho was made to look like HHH’s bitch in every interaction, not to mention playing second fiddle to Steph McMahon in the Wrestlemania Undisputed Title feud. The RVD and Booker T’s feuds against HHH were both similar in how much they made those guys look like choke artists. Big Show’s first run with the belt was undermined twice over. Having him face off against the Big Boss Man was bad enough, but having HHH vs. Vince McMahon as the actual main event didn’t help things either.

On top of all of that, there were also the inflation of title reigns. Vince wins the title, only for it to end up back on HHH with an extra number added to the wins. The title being held up only for HHH to win it back, thus adding another reign without losing it to anyone, etc. Now, HHH is likely never going to actually catch up to Ric Flair, but it did seem for a while that he was well on pace to doing so, especially with scenarios where he didn’t have to lose the title to anyone else in order to get another title reign added to his resume.

I do believe that, at this point, HHH is secure enough in his position to do whatever is good for the business, and I have no doubt he’ll put over Brock as strong as he can (and that having him fight back is just part of the storytelling process … it was a bad idea to have the heel dominate ALL interactions and win the final battle, like it was with HHH back in the day, and it’s still a bad idea now) and don’t think his ego entered into it. Now, that doesn’t mean HHH doesn’t have bad ideas … bringing Nash in was a major bust, and I’m not entirely sure why he could fight HHH but not Punk (or why HHH needed to win the Punk encounter apart from them adding a stipulation that required HHH to win … not that it mattered since HHH still lost his authority anyway).

TL;DR There is a period of HHH’s career where it can be said that he was put over at the expense of many other people on the roster. Whether or not this was because of his relationship with Shawn, or with Steph, or if it was a case of the E’s attempt to build a monster heel in the vein of Ric Flair at the cost of people they wanted to bury anyway (punishing ex-WCW and ECW employees is certainly part of Vince’s M.O.) is unknown, but you can’t point to the part of HHH’s career where he was solidly over enough that he could put people over without losing momentum as an excuse for things that happened before that where potential main eventers were given midcard for life tatoos on their foreheads.
Limodriver

Except for the dozens (and dozens) of other wrestlers who have been similarly buried but didn’t quit.
Zork

I doubt Triple H had much to do with putting Booker over or not. A lot of people didn’t like or care for anyone who was in WCW after they came in and went through the process of being torn down only to be built back up so to speak, with the exception of Chris Benoit and Goldberg I suppose.
kyle fitta

Every person he didn’t put over in that run was a wcw or ecw guy. That was just Vince showing off. Like I said, if Vince thought either one of those guys were cash crops at that point, you think be would’ve just allowed hhh to roll over them? Ego or not at the end of the day every decision comes down to Vince McMahon, and every bad one affects his wallet. I mean sure hhh has done some talent wrong, but you could say that about a lot of wwe main eventers. For instance, I thought the undertaker vs punk feud was mishandled. Does that mean undertaker went out of his way to bury punk? A rumor says that punk was punished down to the losing the belt against taker in the opener but was still gonna lose it anyway. Let’s face it: if triple h was never part of the family, we wouldn’t even be looking into this.
http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/insider/kjfxxo9/ Kyle Fitta

Yeah, I bet he does. He lost a match to Triple H with a lot of interference and kicked out of two pedigrees in a feud that was booked on the fly. And after that, he became champion and hasn’t dropped it since.
http://twitter.com/BlairADouglas Blair A. Douglas

I had an “Interinactivity” article with a response to a comment about Triple H that I got from somewhere on the site – I’ve never particularly understood the internet’s hate of Triple H either. He’s certainly far from my favorite wrestler and is far from being totally innocent, but the criticism of him is blown way out of proportion simply because he’s in a position of power. And Gojira has a good point – most of the criticism that I’ve heard about Triple H comes before 2005 (or so?), not anytime in recent memory.

The idea that Triple H never puts anyone over is silly – this is one of the things that me and Swayze used to disagree about all the time. Triple H spent the last two WrestleMania’s losing to Undertaker. Since 2000, Triple H has cleanly put over Batista (multiple times, in a row), Orton, and Cena, and those 3 guys went on to become the biggest stars in the company. Could he have put over Rob Van Dam and Booker T? Absolutely – but that came around the same time as when they started to build Orton, Cena and Batista – they didn’t want to make guys that came from other places the face of the company. They wanted to build their own guys. Although I certainly think they could have done a LOT better job with Van Dam and Booker, it’s not hard to see where the mindset comes from. As for him beating CM Punk, they ran in more shit to protect him in that match than believable. I think it would have been a nicer touch if Punk had gotten the win, but when the match is that much of a clusterfuck, I don’t think it really matters all that much. Plus, if they have any sense, Punk will get that win back at some point. Another criticism I see a lot is that he’s overstayed his welcome as a wrestler – while I certainly wouldn’t make him the main thrust of the show ever again, that hasn’t been the case in a long while. The only time I think I ever considered him to be overstaying his welcome was when he beat Orton for the title at Mania 25.

Being a management figure in the company, Triple H DOES have to accept some criticism when they do stupid things. But certainly not all of it, and besides, the guy has been eating shit from internet morons for over a decade now. I highly doubt it bothers him all that much.
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EWFX29

Did I enter a time portal back to 2003? Haven’t heard this argument in a while. You should revive Hyatte’s old Reasons Why Triple H Is Better Than You pieces. I can remember the 4 segments of HHH on Raw and/or Smackdown like it was yesterday. Still a fan of his though.
http://twitter.com/Kanta_Mizuno Ryan Alarie

Except of course, people still look into things like Taker burying people (most of his title feuds end up being that way, with Taker either winning, or losing in a way that makes the other person look like a, pardon the pun, punk.

And there is a similar (albeit not entirely the same) argument with Cena. It’s less “Cena puts anyone over” and instead “Cena is not allowed to put anyone else over”. Even when someone is able to look better than Cena, as they did with Punk when he won the title at Money in the Bank, and reunified the belts, etc … they treated Punk’s latest run (after getting it back from Del Rio) by having Punk have ONE main event slot to end a PPV compared to Cena ending every PPV despite being out of the title picture the entire time.

So, while it’s true that, outside of Shawn back in the day, and Taker, few people suspect anyone has the pull or stroke to decide to put themselves over others (outside of WCW where they actually gave people the ability to do that), but they still complain about WWE’s general ‘strategy’ of feeding guys with promise to someone that is over already like Cena, they want to be over like Sheamus, or is never, nor will ever be over (in the way that main eventers should be), like Big Show or Mark Henry.
Steven

I have had more of a problem with Taker than HHH in this regard. Sure, it’s the booking, but things like the way he killed Maven after Maven eliminated him from the Rumble just made him out to be an arrogant bully. The booking has a lot to answer for, but I will always see Taker and Hogan as the same.
MetalFrenzy

Sure he does, but what did HHH won in pinning CM punk that night?? vs what CM Punk would have won?? thats the question.
http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/insider/kjfxxo9/ Kyle Fitta

Honestly, I’m sick of this what if this guy beat this guy, what would he be argument. It’s stupid. It’s like if you beat someone, you’re popularity skyrockets. If Punk beat HHH the way HHH beat Punk, it would’ve meant nothing. Punk would still be where he is. Nobody, and I repeat nobody, get you over more than yourself. Look at Tommy Dreamer. All he did was job and get more over. Meanwhile, Ted DiBiase could beat Undertaker 5 matches in a row, including at Wrestlemania, but he’s not going to become the next big thing in WWE because he cannot get over himself….at least from what I’ve seen.
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chpunk

I really believe Zak Ryder could have made alot of money for the E’ , but Vince refused to see that. Instead we get Rybak and Lord Albert, or Eve being boring and evil. Its like they’re pushing Dolph so they can say “See IWC we push good workers”, but then they push 4 Big Men that suck.
chpunk

I was pretty bored around Wrestlemania 2000, The McMahon Helmsley stuff was getting pretty boring. That might have been my A-D-D riddled mind at the time though.
chpunk

Did he really get buried much after that? I mean all he lost was the KOTR ’96, and he got the IC belt later and I thought it was fall of ’96 that the WWF began grooming him to be a top heel WWF champ, in 5 years?
http://twitter.com/Kanta_Mizuno Ryan Alarie

That was probably one of the biggest problems HHH had. He was “the man” during the brief period of Raw and Smackdown without any brand seperation (or the Invassion before that) to dilute things. So you had HHH as the main event on both shows. Since then, as overexposed as Cena is, he’s mostly been on Raw OR Smackdown, instead of dominating both. (Didn’t help that HHH was both in the main event, and acting as the authority figure, thus increasing his screen time on both shows). He burned out whatever good will he had very quickly since he was in the perfect position to get overexposed much quicker than nearly anyone else before or since.
http://twitter.com/Kanta_Mizuno Ryan Alarie

One thing that is probably partially HHH’s fault is, not so much who he beat or lost against, but the fact that he didn’t seem to be able to win without making his opponent look bad. A great, or good, wrestler is able to win while still making their opponent look good. Or, in building up to the match, they give the eventual loser of a feud some way of saving face, or looking like they have a chance. The RVD/Booker/Jericho situations weren’t just that HHH won the feuds, but did so in a way that made them seem like they didn’t even belong in the ring with HHH, not that he was the better man.

Cena has a similar problem … he doesn’t exactly have an amazing win loss record, he does lose pretty often. However, because of his ‘happy go lucky’ nature, he rarely sells a loss, so even when he loses to someone, it often doesn’t have a lasting impact as it appears to have none on Cena himself. Similarly, no one really gets heat on him for destroying him physically (see any I Quit Match, or Brock’s Extreme Rules fight) since he just shakes it off, sometimes during the same match.
http://twitter.com/Lovely_Rosa2 Rosa

this just seems very “FISHY” smh _-_
http://twitter.com/Lovely_Rosa2 Rosa

lmfao
Anonymous

The Triple H bashing trend goes back to late 2000, when WWF for some reason decided not to turn HHH face by having Steph dump him for Angle. That was the original reason why the IWC hated HHH. When HHH returned, he did win the Rumble and the Undisputed Title, but he also had the shortest reign of any champion to win the belt at Wrestlemania and leave Wrestlemania with the belt (that record may or may not have been broken by somebody in 2008 or 2009 when WWE was changing the World titles seemingly every show). All-in-all, HHH held the title for 1 month out of 27 between losing it to The Rock in 2000 and the end of the Undisputed Title.

By the way, HHH was NOT handed the World Heavyweight Title, contrary to popular IWC myth. HHH defeated Undertaker in a #1 contenders match the night after SummerSlam 2002. Brock Lesnar, then the Undisputed Champion, refused to face HHH and jumped along with Undertaker to Smackdown. Since HHH was the #1 contender that Lesnar refused to face, he was declared the (disputed) World Heavyweight Champion. HHH went on to beat (NOT “bury”) a very slim group of challengers. HHH beat RVD (an unreliable stoner who got arrested for smoking pot when he finally won the belt), Kane (goes without saying), Steiner (who was awful in his WWE run), Booker T (maybe he should have won the belt), and Nash (did anybody want to see him as champ?). HHH dropped the belt to HBK (in the first and best Elimination Chamber match) and Goldberg (probably didn’t deserve the belt) before regaining it. HHH tapped out to Benoit (who was inexplicably moved to Raw and right into the middle of the HHH VS HBK feud, basically discrediting the Smackdown brand and turning Smackdown into the inferior brand instead of an equal brand). Then, Orton won the belt, HHH kicked him out of Evolution and they gave HHH the belt before they fully established Orton. Orton was supposed to regain it at Wrestlemania, but lost all his heat. HHH held the title until Wrestlemania (it was vacated for a few weeks after HHH was pinned and tapped out at the same time in a triple threat match on Raw before he regained it in an Elimination Chamber match). Instead of Orton winning the title at Wrestlemania, HHH beat Orton at the Rumble and put over Batista at Wrestlemania. HHH did not regain the title for over 3 years and went on to job to Cena at Wrestlemania 22, miss Wrestlemania 23 due to injury and job to Orton at Wrestlemania 24.

The people that bash HHH live in a fantasy world. One can also see just how screwed up the Lesnar-HHH feud was because there was no reference to their history from 10 years prior (which should have been the buildup and was the reason I wanted to see that match more than any other potential Lesnar match). HHH was not only one of the best wrestlers of his generation, but he also made more stars than pretty much anybody not named Shawn Michaels. HHH truly was to the 2000s what Ric Flair was to the 1980s. HHH will one day be a great owner of WWE, as he seems to have a better understanding of Vince when it comes to running a wrestling company (the poor state of WWE today is due to Vince and Steph’s poor Creative decisions and Johnny Ace’s incompetence as head of talent relations).
dystopia_joe

Who really cares if it’s his ego or wife? The guy got WAY too much screen time and was allowed to get his heat back after every single loss. How many times did we see HHH not come out on top in the end? Whenever he was a heel, he got to utterly kill the face after the match, even if he lost. We were subjected to 20-plus minute long interview segments where he did the majority of the talking multiple times a year … and the guy is not a great talker, he prattles on about how tough he is then his opponents come in and talk about how great he is … putting him over instead of themselves. It just sucked.

HHH’s eternal top-of-the-card status is why I stopped watching WWE. I think the last episode I watched was in the mid-2000s when Edge was on an amazing roll and HHH got to kill it dead on RAW. I remember the last time I tried to watch in 2012 … and the show opened with effin HHH again, with Cena, that Irish guy and CM Punk coming out and praising him for beating their asses … same old crap I stopped watching for. So, I turned it off.