10 Things I Hate About Triple H
4. I Still Remember The Reign Of Terror
“Say, does that thing there influence the tides?”
There’s no other way to put it: during the Ruthless Aggression Era, Triple H just wouldn’t go away.
Those of us who were watching at the time will all remember his run on top on RAW with the world title - a title which, in the storyline and more or less in real life, had been created for him.
Over 900 days between September 2002 and April 2005, Triple H held the title five times, totalling 616 days - two thirds of that two and a half year period saw him on the top of the card as champion, and playing the same badass heel role.
His work wasn’t the issue: it was, for the most part, extraordinary. The problem was that he was incredibly overexposed as a on-screen character, to the point that fans were exhausted just seeing him on television.
Worse, he seemed to be shoehorned into every other angle, and always seemed to go over. His role as the leader of the Evolution stable meant that he had a hand in any storylines concerning Randy Orton, Batista or Ric Flair.
He was pretty much unbearable for nearly three years of WWE television… and wrestling fans tend to remember that sort of thing.
Even this year, over a decade later, my instinctive response to seeing him with the WWE Championship this January - a storyline progression I actually support - was to shiver uncontrollably and reach for a cigarette, and I quit smoking two years ago.