10 Wrestlers Who Defeated The WWE Machine
1. Triple H
Triple H did not just defeat the WWE machine - he became it.
His rumoured brown-nosing and bag-carrying almost exploded in his face. He was chosen as the fall guy to punish following the infamous 1996 Curtain Call incident orchestrated by the backstage Kliq faction he had buddied up to. It was a different time; the WWF wasn't in a perilous state, but certainly could not afford to lock the doghouse door. So Triple H recovered, found relevance and popularity in D-Generation X, and rose though the ranks. He met another stumbling block in Steve Austin in 1999. 'Stone Cold' felt he did not belong on his level, and thus petitioned to relinquish his WWF Title to him via Mankind at SummerSlam. Two things happened subsequently:
Triple H, having been put over big as a main event performer by Foley months later, realised that Austin's strategy for self-preservation was best, and thus modelled himself after it, seizing his grip at the top.
He courted and married Stephanie McMahon, which afforded him an unprecedented degree of creative power for a performer, enabling him to do so.
Trips became a corporate power broker as methodical as his match layouts. He wasn't handed developmental through nepotism; he engineered a coup by gradually eroding John Laurinaitis' already-dismal reputation.
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