10 Times Triple H Was RIDICULOUSLY Selfish At WWE WrestleMania
Chairs and balls of steel.
Wrestling apocrypha has it that, in the midst of Triple H's mid-2000s Reign Of Terror, an unwitting Creative Writer delivered a RAW script to his office. Trips asked, in a very aggressive manner, the following question - so legendary in its acute framing of the man that it lives on as a meme.
"Am I f*cking going over?" he said.
It was a rhetorical question, not that the Writer in question was aware. Triple H was going over. The next time this occurred, Triple H, and the fact that this was something of a catchphrase is hilarious, repeated his enquiry.
"Am I f*cking going over?" he said.
He was not; Triple H was scheduled to lose via disqualification. "You get to keep the title," the Writer offered. Enraged, Trips tore out the offending page and threw the remaining script to the floor. On the morning of the show, the script looked slightly different. Triple H was f*cking going over, and f*cking going over clean.
Even if this story is pure bull, it works perfectly as satire because it is so plausible. In recent years, Trips has restored that reputation - and, rather too conspicuously, on the Grandest Stage. Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins: he f*cking put them over. But Triple H's selflessness is, paradoxically and insidiously, selfish.
It's just another level of 'The Game'...
10. Motorcycle Emptiness
An ambitious WWE Creative Writer sidles up to Triple H's office, ahead of WrestleMania 33. Triple H Vs. Seth Rollins, an Unsanctioned Match, is one of the show's key attractions. The Writer hands over his pitch, which Trips casts his darting gaze over.
"Are you sanctioning my f*cking entrance?"
"No. WWE wants no part of this, formally. The company cannot contain this rivalry, but it threatens so much damage to Seth that it cannot in good conscience endorse it. To really put it over as such, we need to strip everything back, and have you guys come out in street clothes."
Triple H, infuriated, tears up the pitch. When he emerges on the Grandest Stage, he does so on a juiced-up trike, rocking a leather waistcoat.
Yes, Seth hardly emerged in his street clothes - but Triple H, who held the power to do so, did nothing to frame the attraction in the spirit of it. He betrayed the outlaw stakes of a unique storyline, that fell into his lap serendipitously, purely to continue the increasingly hilarious trope that is his overblown WrestleMania entrance. A stark, original image it might have been - "Moment"-worthy, even - but it was not.
For an influential figure in a company big on storytelling and psychology, he just had to get his sh*t in.