10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Triple H
6. Just How Long It Took To Get Him To The Top...
To ask Triple H, you'd think the Attitude Era and runaway success of WWE from 1997 through to WCW's closure in 2001 was down Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and...Triple H.
This rules out a number of enormously important figures who will get their due plaudits shortly, but this line of nonsense is doubly dubious beyond 'The Game' putting himself in the bracket with the actual top guys. He wasn't just on the tier below them, but he was also years behind them in the top-of-the-roster rat race too.
As far back as 1997, Hunter and Rock were part of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart's political war as their respective locker room proteges. Considering who won that particular turf war and Rocky Maivia's abysmal start to life, it was something of a shock when Nation leader Rock had lapped DX boss Hunter one year later. The two went to war over the Intercontinental Title in much the same way Michaels and Hart had in 1992, and yet again mirroring that pairing, one lost upwards to the World Title and the other stayed secondary for longer.
After Triple H couldn't hold a candle to Austin as a babyface in '98, he turned heel on DX in '99 right in time for Rock switching sides and doing just fine sharing the top spot with 'The Rattlesnake'. When fans didn't buy 'The Game' as a top bad guy, he reunited the stable as his goons, adopted a worked shoot attitude in his promos and pinned just about every wrestler alive in a series of television and pay-per-view trials designed to force you into accepting him as the man.
Examples, you say? Read on...