25 Years Of Triple H In WWE: That Damn Good For One Damn Year

There were highlights and lowkey classics listed on the last page, and there's a chance several of the star-laden ones might rock up on the company-approved content celebrating the best of a man that so rarely embodied the term. And yet, there are still gems buried deep within the archives. Gems such as the below contests. Two that look so stupid written down that they're presumably too forgettable or fallible to be profiled on the billion dollar Fox show or WWE.com.

Find and watch Triple H Vs Taka Michinoku from the April 10th Raw and Triple H Vs The Brooklyn Brawler & Kai En Tai from the July 6th SmackDown.

The layouts were of course designed to flatter Hunter, but his irrepressible genius between the ropes offered the same in return for his no-hoper opponents. Taka Michinoku was f*cking fantastic on both nights, but WWE had flattened his push to the level of his teammates in the latter handicap clash. These masterclasses from 'The Game' reversed that perception to the point that audiences bit on near falls on both nights. How dare he be so good. The unlikely rivals were despatched in the end, but the sheer relief on the face of both Hunter and his exhausted seconds Shane and Stephanie McMahon respectively tell the stories of some actual stories. If only the years that followed had been half as kind to Hunter as he once was to the roster and fanbase at large.

You'll be spun yarn after yarn about the "one diamond in this industry" and him saving/starting the Ruthless Aggression era or whatever Rapaport-adjacent bullsh*t they’re going with at the moment. It’s his narrative control, and unfortunately a controlled narrative is all it is.

But it was once, for a short but sensational period, for real. Bow down to that, if not 'The King Of Kings' himself.