7 Fascinating WWE Backstage Facts About Triple H

3. Had His King Of The Ring Win Delayed By A Year

HHH was supposed to win the King of the Ring in 1996. To quote Tyson Kidd, FACT. As to why this didn€™t happen? Well, a little incident often referred to as the Madison Square Garden Curtain Call happened. At that point in €˜96, Hunter was a member of the backstage group known as The Kliq. The issue was two members of the group, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, were leaving the WWF for the greener pastures (in more ways than one) of Ted Turner€™s WCW. Before Nash and Hall, then known as Diesel and Razor Ramon, respectively, left the company there was a live event in Madison Square Garden. Bad guy Hunter Heart Helmsley went up against babyface Razor, whilst the main event saw the villainous Diesel losing to good guy Shawn Michaels. After the Diesel/Michaels match, Razor came out to hug HBK. Then came HHH to the ring. The four competitors, Diesel, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon and HHH, would all embrace in the middle of the ring. At the time, this was deemed to have exposed the wrestling business as being a work and left WWF management seething. HHH was due to win that year€™s King of the Ring event, only this was then shelved. The WWF needed to punish somebody for the MSG Curtain Call €“ Shawn was the WWF Champion and so near-enough untouchable, and Nash and Hall had left the company. And so the fallout of that event landed at the door of Hunter. What followed for Helmsley was a hefty run of jobbing and a few Godwin sloppings. As for the King of the Ring, the 1996 crown would go to a bald headed chap by the name of Steve Austin €“ you may have heard of him. HHH took his punishment like a man and would end up finally claiming the King of the Ring crown at the 1997 event.
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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.