10 Wrestlers Who Got Buried For Someone Else Screwing Up

3. Triple H

‘The Curtain Call’ was the famous swansong at Madison Square Garden in May 1996 for the famous backstage faction The Kliq consisting of Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Razor Ramon and Diesel. Michaels has explained they came up with idea of embracing at MSG after Michaels and Nash’s steel cage match whilst on a tour of Europe and it was actually Triple H who suggested they go ahead with the idea on the night, commenting:-

“That night, as best as I can recall, it was Hunter coming up and going, ‘Hey, are we doing that thing we talked about?’”

Vince McMahon grew to be furious when the wrestlers broke kayfabe in the middle of the ring and hugged. Triple H screwed up with the suggestion and going ahead with it but so equally did HBK, Diesel and Ramon.

The only difference was Triple H was expendable, just being a lackey for Shawn at the time. Triple H not only had heat over it, but he also had nuclear heat from Vince and the office over it. He was the one who had to suffer through the backlash of Diesel, Shawn and Razor screwing up too. Vince couldn’t punish Diesel or Razor because they were out the door at that point working for the WWF’s main competitor WCW and couldn’t punish Michaels who was somewhat untouchable at that point as the WWF desperately needed him. So all the blame got put on HHH who’s pencilled-in King of the Ring win was quickly scrapped.

Triple H has said on the whole debacle:-

“They did everything they could to screw with me. They gave me the worst matches possible, gave me lame referees, booked me against guys I had to carry. They took me out of the main event matches and put me in the opening card matches. They cut all my angles on TV. They stopped me from having any hopes of going for titles or belt. I was held back.”