10 Things I Hate About Triple H
6. He's The Most Insecure Main Eventer In History
“It's not the size of a nose that's important. It's what's in it that matters.”
That revisionist history, those WrestleMania entrances, the refusal to consistently work heel to the point where he might be properly despised… is it just that Triple H is desperate to remain the top dog, and insecure about his legacy?
While every wrestler with a little ambition looks out for their own spot, Triple H has long acted as though he was jealous about other people’s spots in the company. Most notoriously, his rivalry with The Rock during the Attitude Era is pretty comprehensively documented.
When they were feuding, Triple H would regularly ad lib putdowns and smart remarks in promos against him to get one over on his opponent, something that infuriated The Rock, who tended to work from a script.
When The Rock became corporate WWF Champion at Survivor Series in 1998, Triple H felt threatened: by his own admission, he saw himself as the company’s top heel, but here Rocky was again, in the spot he wanted.
He and his best mate Shawn Michaels lobbied hard to have Triple H replace The Rock as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin’s opponent at WrestleMania, to no avail.
Years later, when The Rock began to transition away from the WWF/E and into movies, Triple H began his own half-hearted attempt to do likewise, appearing in Blade: Trinity in 2004, and working hard to have himself cast as Conan - you know, like The Scorpion King only better - in the rebooted movie, back when the film was in development.
When he failed to even get a foot in the door, he dreamed up the Conan-based entrance you saw at WrestleMania 22 as a consolation prize.
Since then, the narrative has been noticeably reframed, with The Rock cast as the guy who left the WWE and Triple H as the wrestling lifer who stayed, allegedly having no interest in the movie offers he’d received.
Rumour has it that when Cena feuded with The Rock in recent years, the content of his promos that specifically referenced The Rock’s Hollywood career versus Cena’s full time WWE career were words placed in his mouth by Triple H.