10 REAL Reactions From WWE Wrestlers Being Punished On Air
1. Triple H (Sunday Night Heat, 1999)
Triple H initially wasn't allowed to sell nor reference the incident in 1996 that set his WWE career back a year after emerging from it largely unscathed, but opening up about the infamous Curtain Call punishment in 1999 got him over a significant hump as a main event heel.
The future 'King Of Kings' wasn't remotely considered a contender to the WWE throne shared by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in 1999 despite a substantial post-WrestleMania push, but a worked shoot interview ahead of SummerSlam title shot saw him open up about the run of losses he went on as the sole recipient of The Clique's punishment three years earlier.
It was during this verbose sit-down with JR (back when such a thing was relatively welcome) that he addressed it and coined a nickname that would stick with him for the remainder of his career. As he fumed, "I said goodbye to my friends...who got punished for that JR? Me. You know why? Could nobody in the office had the b*lls to do it to anybody else...you guys talk about being students of the game...I am the f*cking Game JR".
This was as real a reaction as we'd ever get from the future COO about his darkest time and it was all he needed to cement his spot. "That Damn Good" indeed.