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The G.O.A.T. 100 #80 | Triple H
- Peter Edge
- Jun 25
- 21 min read
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
Look, I’m not happy about this either - but facts don’t lie.
But Paul has some interesting points of data to show that makes him a worthwhile entrant.
He is someone who was an undisputed WOTY for a particular year (2000), a genuine box office attraction and a heel that was the main antagonist of one of the most successful eras in WWF/E history.
There are obvious lowlights in his career (I had to re-watch the Reign of Terror to get this done – hence why I was reluctant to take him out of the G.O.A.T 100. I needed to justify reliving that godawful period of wrestling!) But there are some interesting moments in his career away from the year he was legitimately the best wrestler in the world
A trainee of Killer Kowalski, Paul Levesque started his in-ring career under the ring name Terra Ryzing (get it) in Kowalski’s IWF promotion. He would keep the name when he debuted in WCW but then got repackaged into Jean-Paul Levesque, with his character of a French citizen playing on the French ancestry in his family. Paul would be required to speak in a French accent which was bad as you think it was. The method acting Paul would play into his role of a Frenchman was so great however that 25 years later he would ignore sexual misconduct in the workplace.
Levesque would end up teaming up with Steven Regal in what was the first version of the Blue Bloods and would become close friends in the process. Regal would actually advise Paul to leave WCW when his contract came up for renewal and WWF came calling with an offer of their own and the rest is history.
Hunter Hearst-Helmsley (what did you think Triple H stood for) would make his debut in late April of 1995. Sporadic PPV appearances saw a SummerSlam win over Bob Holly, a IYH 3 victory over Fatu and a Hog Pen match with Henry Godwinn which saw Hunter win, but still get thrown into the hog pen after the match.
The 1996 Royal Rumble saw Hunter in the “Ironman” position being the first man in and lasting til near the end. WrestleMania 12 saw HHH as the fall guy in the Ultimate Warrior on his return after 3 and a half years away from wrestling, losing in less than 120 seconds. It would be two months later that things got awkward for Hunter though
To tell the story of Paul Levesque in wrestling, you need to talk about his mates. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Shawn Michaels and Sean Waltmann were the Kliq. To a 10 year-old me, The Kliq were the fans of Shawn Michaels. I figured I counted as a member of the Kliq as someone who was a massive fan of HBK growing up. But it turned out that the Kliq was more than just a bunch of fans. It was four individuals that had power. It was four men that had great matches with each other. It was four friends that looked out for each other professionally.
All friendship groups do add, and in 1995 Hunter started to ride along with the four Kliqmen of the Apocalypse, (it probably helped that he was tee-total and would make a great designated driver while the Michaels, Nash, Hall and Waltmann quartet could get wasted) and obviously got close enough that he was invited to the ring for a moment that changed WWE.
Nash and Hall were due to leave WWF for WCW and their last date was May 19 in Madison Square Garden. Nash’s last match would be against Shawn Michaels in a Cage. Obviously, Michaels won. But after the match Hunter and Hall got into the ring. Fans thought it was an angle in all likelihood. But then the four hugged. They raised each other's arms. They said goodbye to each other.
It would be known as the Curtain Call. It was a moment that broke kayfabe and pissed a lot of people off. It's a moment so famous it warranted more time on the Mr. McMahon documentary than the murder of Nancy Argentino by Jimmy Snuka. But this infamous incident that pissed off the boys in the back needed consequences. The problem was Nash and Hall were gone, Michaels was WWF Champ at the time. So only one person could be punished.
Hunter Hearst-Helmsley was supposed to win the King of the Ring in 1996 but that booking decision was annulled probably before HHH got out of New York that night. Steve Austin would win KOTR – and the rest is history.
The narrative that Hunter was “buried” is probably one of those narratives that Paul Levesque likes to push even if the truth doesn’t quite align. He was put into a feud with Mr. Perfect with an end-game seeing the pair align as Perfect turned heel on IC Champion Marc Mero, helping HHH win the Intercontinental Championship, continuing the feud that Mero and Helmsley had coming out of Mania that year.
That reign was meh. The loss of the title to Rocky Maivia was shocking in kayfabe but the sooner that belt was off Hunter, the better to be honest. But a week later, something happened that changed everything for Hunter.
He gained a bodyguard in the shape of Chyna. No, not the country but a muscular woman by the name of Joanie Laurer who was now the “Ninth Wonder of the World”, Chyna and the double act hit the floor running.
A feud with Mick Foley in his Mankind incarnation helped massively too. Hunter beat Mankind to win the 1997 KOTR which started the feud. The pair had a great brawl at Canadian Stampede, an OK-ish cage match at SummerSlam and a fun opener of the One Night Only PPV in Birmingham, England (which I was at) but it was a month earlier that we would see the next big moment in Hunter’s career.
Shawn Michaels had turned heel in August 1997 and was feuding with The Undertaker. Shawn and Hunter would team to face Taker and Mankind on an episode of Raw. In storyline, that was the start of a working relationship between HBK and HHH.
Hunter started interfering in Shawn’s matches, including the One Night Only main event against British Bulldog in which HBK won the European Title. They would get involved in high jinks and would land on the name, DeGeneration X as their team name.
It was also in the fall of 97 that Hunter Hearst-Helmsley became Triple H. Shawn figured that saying Triple H was easier than saying Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, (you try saying Hunter Hearst Helmsley when pilled off your face) so Triple H was born.
The pair ran roughshod over WWE but by the time WrestleMania XIV came by, Shawn’s back was such a mess, he needed to take time off. So a new and improved DX was formed. Waltman who had left the Fed for WCW came back to join and The New Age Outlaws also joined. But any aspirations for the group to stay heel were gone by May.
They were starting to get cheered so the switch to babyface was made. A feud with the Nation of Domination began with the focus on the two leaders, Triple H and The N.O.D’s leader Rocky Maivia, now known as The Rock.
It was during this feud that THAT Rock impersonation segment happened which helps understand some of Levesque’s non-pushes of African-Americans.
A series of matches ended at Summerslam 98 in a very fun ladder match in MSG. But that summer when the two next big stars of the company were battling for the IC Title that Rock was holding took its toll on Hunter. Within 6 weeks of winning the belt in the Ladder match, Triple H had to vacate it.
Trips was back as 1999 and would turn heel at Wrestlemania XV which was the start of the mega push which put Triple H as one of its four cornerstones of the Attitude Era.
The climatic moment of the push was supposed to be SummerSlam 99 where he would beat Steve Austin for the World Title with special guest ref Jesse Ventura – the Governor of Minnesota at the time – raising his hand.
The problem was Steve Austin played his “that ain't going to work for me brother” card. Mankind was now a third man in the match and won the Triple Threat match to win the title. Trips would finally win the belt the night after Raw but the grand occasion wasn't the same.
Triple H’s reign saw him feud with a babyface Mr. McMahon and survive challenges to his title until Survivor Series in which he dropped the belt to Big Show. But after that came a series of events which changed his life.
The introduction of Stephanie McMahon to WWE canon saw some soap opera elements added to WWF telly with the Steph/Test forbidden love story. In storyline, the pair were due to get married.
On the December 7th episode of Raw, the ceremony was to take place. Now, of course it's wrestling and it's the Attitude Era so when the vicar said the words “if anyone objects to this marriage……” you knew something was about to happen and so did the fans in attendance judging by the pop for this moment.
It was Triple H that objected and for a reason. It turned out that he had kidnapped Steph whose drink had been spiked at her hen do. She was driven to the drive-by chapel in Vegas (I guess that's why Trips was insistent on being inducted into the HOF in that town) and they got married.
Alexa, explain to me the Attitude Era, please.
Seriously, if you miss the Attitude Era – I’m presuming that you’re MAGA or a member of the Reform Party here in the UK.
In another “explain to me the Attitude Era” moment, the woman involved ended up turning heel. It turned out Steph and Hunter “were in on it all along” and therefore the McMahon-Helmsley era had begun in the most ironic bit of foreshadowing you'll ever see unless it actually rained on Alanis Morrisette’s wedding day.
There was a time when Triple H was the best wrestler in the world and it wasn’t disputed by anyone. 2000 saw him have the best year of a heel since Ric Flair in 1988. The beginning of the year saw a classic against Cactus Jack in quite possibly the best No-DQ match in wrestling history until AEW came along. The Ironman match against The Rock in May is a contender for the best ever 60 minute Iron Man match and July’s Last Man Standing against Chris Jericho is the best “counting to 10” match in WWE history. Trips’ rest of the year saw a face run which actually was a trojan horse for the revelation of the “Who Ran Over Stone Cold?” story. This didn’t have the gems of the first seven months but Trips was the MVP of the 6-Pac Hell In A Cell match at Armageddon at the end of the year.
With five ****½+ matches in that year Triple H was the consensus Wrestler of the Year in 2000 and in the first 4 months of 2001, Trips was having a great 2001 with a 3 Stages of Hell match with Steve Austin that, while flawed, was still really good. The Mania X-7 match against Undertaker would have won MOTN on many a WWE PPV, but then it happened…
It was on May 21st 2001. It was the second ****½+ match from Triple H in 2001, his seventh in 18 months. Triple H was teaming with Steve Austin, now the Two Man Power Trip faced The Canadian Chrises of Jericho and Benoit on a Raw for the TMPT’s Tag Titles in a very ordinary spot which saw Trips breaking up Jericho’s Walls of Jericho on Austin, but in the process Triple H blew his Quad muscle right off the bone. This injury took Triple H seven months to recover from. His return on January 2002, seen by WWE fans as an all-time moment and imitated by MJF at Double or Nothing 2024 could have been the moment which saw super face Triple H carry on where he left off.
He didn’t.
The face run of Triple H was so successful… that he turned back heel in July 2002. But the inability to adapt to wearing a white hat wasn’t really the problem. The problem was more long-term.
On his return in January of that year, Triple H had increased his mass, he was bigger muscle wise (I’m really trying not to say the word "steroids") and it slowed him down and made him less agile and flexible – meaning the days of 2000 and Q1 of 2001 were long gone.
From that return to the day he retired, we would see 6 ****½ matches in all and while a couple of those matches would be WWE MOTY and in the case of his match with Shawn Michaels at Summerslam, my overall MOTY for 2002, the 507 days where Triple H was the best wrestler in the word were no longer there. But, was the “added mass” the only problem? Not quite…
The Stephanie/Hunter storyline ended up working itself into a shoot. They fell in love and became a couple in real life.
Trips got the most power an active wrestler had ever got in WWE history. Triple H began to show his love of 80’s Jim Crockett Promotions in his presentation with a faction similar to the Four Horseman, he began to look like Harley Race and began to work like him in World Heavyweight Title defences (the belt was the Big Gold Belt famous for its time in JCP) Ironically, such a love for 1982-1988 and 6:05 on the Superstation would have made Trips a perfect cast member for the first 11 weeks of Collision but with a WWE roster with Benoit, Edge, Mysterio, Angle and Guerrero increasing the working standard, Triple H looked ancient compared to the 5 I just mentioned.
Even John Cena with his limited in-ring talents knew how to adapt. Triple H didn’t.
Of Triple H’s Top 20 matches on Cagematch, only 2 are non-gimmick matches or non-Triple Threats, the 29/12/03 match against Shawn Michaels and the Wrestlemania 30 match against Daniel(son) Bryan. The problem with Triple H’s work in traditional one-fall matches was that they would at times become Triple H Dissectional Specials in which he worked over a body part in an uninteresting way and worked in a pace that looked similar to a Frank Gotch match in the 1910s.
A perfect case in point of what I just mentioned in what is best known as the Reign of Terror was WrestleMania XIX and the World Heavyweight Title defense against Booker T.
The build up was racist. That can't be argued. With the “dance for me” moment to “people like you don't get to become World Champion” the verbiage of Triple H’s promos in the build up to the Trips / Booker match is horrific, and while how much of it was the people writing the promos to the person delivering the lines is a debate for who is to blame, those moments were a damnation on the attitude to African-Americans in the company at the time. An attitude that still exists to this day when you look at the booking of main roster WWE in the last four years. Then there was the finish of that match between him and Booker in Seattle.
The match was "meh" already before THAT finish... It was a “Triple H dissection special”. It wasn't interesting at all. But the finish of the match was the most glaring insight to Triple H’s power and his insecurities.
On this Mania XIX show, Hulk Hogan needed 3 Legdrops of Doom to beat Vince McMahon, Rock needed 3 Rock Bottoms to beat Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar needed 3 F5’s and needed to go further into his bag of moves and hit a Shooting Star Press to beat Kurt Angle. Triple H only needed one Pedigree to beat Book and it was 23 seconds from that Pedigree to Trips covering Booker.
Booker then got put back into the mid-card with Trips feuding with Kevin Nash on TAFKA Diesel’s return from injury. A potential money feud with Goldberg was a failure because of Triple H’s lack of willingness to work within the established Goldberg formula of match and with also the Fed’s newly born obsession (adapted from JCP in the late 80s) with "the money is in the chase” style of storytelling.
A perfect time for Goldberg to win the belt at Summerslam was sidestepped. Goldberg winning the title the following month was too little too late. His momentum was never the same after the failure to capitalize on the peak time moment in August ‘03, and by the time Triple H won the World Heavyweight Title back in December, Goldberg was another dead body in the WWE ocean – devoured by the Great White Shark that was Triple H.
Now, if you're reading this and you think I'm hating on Uncle Paul, you're either an uber WWE fan or worse – a British wrestling-media YouTuber. You're also probably telling me that Triple H put over his opponent in three consecutive Wrestlemanias.
And while that is true, closer inspection shows the holes in that argument.
Chris Benoit after winning the belt from Trips at XX, played second fiddle as champ to Triple H’s feuds until Summerslam when he dropped the belt.
I'll give you Batista. Batista looked strong in his time as a main eventer and problems with Batista’s push were more Vince McMahon preferring John Cena as the ace of WWE. Also, the Triple H/Batista Hell in a Cell at Vengeance 2005 is a must-watch that is that small list of Criterion Collection matches post quad-tear.
But, while John Cena was always destined to be booed by WWE male fans, Triple H didn't make life easy for John in this aspect by undermining his character throughout the build to Mania 22. The cheers Triple H received over Cena at that Mania main event were put down to the older, more established fanbase being in Chicago’s Rosemont Horizon that night and that crowd set the temperature of the next 7 years of Triple H’s career.
He turned face a couple of months later and reunited with Shawn Michaels to restart DX. What followed was a burial of Spirit Squad, humour out of the Vince McMahon “joke book” including a skit involving Candice Michelle which inferred oral sex that got WWE booted off TSN in Canada. A feud with a Mr. McMahon character on its last legs was bettered by the feud with Rated RKO (Randy Orton and Edge) which ended hastily after Trips suffered his second quad tear in the first week of 2007.
It led to a nondescript '07 and '08 with just a Last Man Standing match at No Mercy 2007 against Randy Orton and a couple of matches involving Jeff Hardy including a singles match at No Mercy ‘08 and a triple threat that also included Edge at Armageddon two months later.
Feels like I should say something nice about Paul now: Triple H was the most consistent box-office attraction in the United States in the 00s. There. Happy now?
2009 was better, with another notebook-worthy Last Man Standing match against Randy Orton (maybe the Mania 25 borefest should have been a LMS match) on the episode of Raw that Donald Trump in WWE canon was in charge of, an reunion of DX after a year and a half separated after Trips's quad tear that saw a good feud with the Legacy team of Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase and a Triple Threat match with Michaels and Cena that outshone the awful build up.
DX at this time were a comedy act, with shenanigans aplenty with Hornswoggle that did lead to a stupid, yet a guilty pleasure of a segment called Little People’s Court.
It was a sign that Triple H was edging away from the World Title picture, a picture that was further away when he suffered a torn bicep in Q1 of 2010.
It was during the time away healing when Paul Levesque started to shadow his father-in-law Vince as he went about his duties as WWE owner. He gained an office at WWE HQ and in 2011 was given the title of Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative.
His in-ring career was now part time. Two matches against The Undertaker at consecutive Manias were part of the main attraction of WrestleMania season in both years, and the matches delivered. The Mania 27 match included a moment which played on the fears of fans about Triple H’s power in the company when he hit a Tombstone piledriver on Taker and did the traditional Taker pin. 28 would be a Hell in A Cell match described as “End of an Era,” promoting the idea that Triple H and Undertaker wouldn’t be seen that often post Mania 28.
It was kind of correct in Paul Levesque’s case. He would wrestle just 23 more matches on WWE television after the HIAC match. A trilogy of matches against Brock Lesnar saw Triple H put Brock over in theory, but in practice Brock only got “aura” put next to his name after being the one to break the Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania 30, a WrestleMania that Triple H played a big part in in storyline.
In the summer of 2013, Trips turned heel on Daniel Bryan, set up The Authority and was the heel authority figure. In trying to run back the McMahon vs Austin feud which set the company on the prosperous road it did with Bryan as the underdog fighting from underneath, all roads (with a lot of pivoting because of fan reaction and backstage drama – yes, I’m looking at you Phil Brooks) led to WrestleMania XXX with a Daniel Bryan vs Triple H opener and then Bryan vs Trips’ two charges Orton and Batista in a Triple Threat.
The trio of H, Orton and Batista faced The Shield in two matches in which The Shield were put over big time on both occasions. But thoughts that Triple H was now an altruistic being in putting over wrestlers at all times was put on hold at WrestleMania 31 with the match against Sting.
Triple H would have one more World Title reign in winning a Royal Rumble match in which Roman Reigns’ title was on the line. In a case where the design was for Roman Reigns to come across strongly in beating Triple H didn’t come off with the fans not buying into Roman.
The next year’s WrestleMania Triple H match was a “dissection special” against Seth Rollins.
While the in-ring career of Triple H was winding down, he became the face of NXT and the Performance Center that the NXT brand was the showcase of. With dissatisfaction of the main roster product at an all time high with Roman Reigns as the ace of the company, Paul Levesque was seen as the potential savior of the company by many.
He won Booker of the Year in the 2016 Observer Awards the only year in the 2012-2019 period that Gedo didn't win the award. On the weekend of a “Big 5” PPV/PLE weekend, the Saturday before the big show that Vince McMahon had put on, NXT was seen as the better show of the weekend. The cult of Paul was getting bigger with online fans.
WrestleMania 33 saw the last really good match of Triple H’s career. Teaming with his wife Stephanie, they wrestled Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle in a really fun mixed tag match. It was the fifth to last match that Paul wrestled on TV.
Matches in Saudi Arabia against The Undertaker and a tag match with HBK against Taker and his storyline brother Kane are awful. A Mania 35 match against Batista is deathly dull and a match against Randy Orton in Saudi is just two guys not getting out of second gear. (Yes, there's an easy Orton never gets out of second gear observation to make here.) This Orton match, not known at the time, would be the last match we would see out of Paul Levesque.
NXT and the PC was taking more of the focus for Paul. The success of NXT would be capitalised on when a new company was founded called All Elite Wrestling.
NXT, one of the main selling points for the WWE Network, was moved to longtime Fed network partner USA Network on Wednesday night to go head to head with the AEW Dynamite show that was beginning on TNT in October 2019.
The plan was simple. NXT would kick AEW’s ass in the ratings. TNT, who has AEW on air as All Elite were paying for the slot would just have enough of a badly rated show on primetime would ask AEW to go away and WWE’s monopoly on wrestling in the U.S. would continue.
It didn't work that way.
It almost did though. After an attempt to promote NXT on the main shows that included a spirited showing from NXT at Survivor Series, the 18/12/19 show saw NXT beat AEW in the ratings not just in overall viewership but in the key demo of 18-49, the first time they had done that. NXT had their foot on AEW’s throat but let go. The call, from Paul I'm presuming, to put a recap show on New Year's Day instead of a live wrestling show left Dynamite more-or-less unopposed, seeing Dynamite hit a great rating, TNT gave AEW a contract of 5 years to air Dynamite (plus an extra show) and NXT apart from a few weeks of hotshotting title vs title matches, never touched AEW in ratings again to the point that USA moved NXT to Tuesdays.
Triple H was demoted and would suffer a “cardiac event” or a heart attack for those that don't speak “Vincenglish”. The demotion was in all probability punishment for failing to stop AEW before it got a foothold in the market. The heart attack was going to, in all probability, prevent Triple H from wrestling again. In an interview with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN, Levesque announced his retirement. He was given one last chance to make an entrance to “The Game” from Motorhead, spitting water and doing the famous poses at WrestleMania 38. But in a world where his corporate power had been neutered and he had no chance to wrestle again, what would become of Paul Levesque?
Fate would play a hand, if fate comes in the shape of a phone call to the Wall Street Journal from an anonymous person from the WWE board of directors (there’s a reason Nick Khan and Paul are tied to the hip in the corporate politics of TKO/WWE) and would start a WSJ investigation which exposed that Vince McMahon had used corporation funds to pay off women who had alleged that McMahon had committed acts of sexual misconduct on them. The talk was loud enough that Vince “retired” from WWE.
The man who many thought would have to be carried out of Titan Towers in a wooden box for him to leave just simply said on twitter that he was gone.
That 24-hour period was nuts. CNN did a story on it, Bryan Alvarez appeared on Stephen Nolan’s Radio 5 Live show and I actually subscribed to Fightful Select (just for two months though.)
The Smackdown that happened hours after the retirement announcement saw Stephanie lead a “Thank you, Vince” chant in another Stephanie-not-reading-the-room moment. (Google Stephanie McMahon 9/11 tribute show.)
Vince’s replacement as the head of creative was Triple H, or Paul Levesque as we needed to call him now. With a shiny new title, CCO, (Chief Creative Officer) Triple H was the one with the pencil and making the decisions of the creative of WWE and almost instantly, fans began to praise the product.
Vince McMahon did worm his way back into WWE. He managed to perform a boardroom heist to put allies of his into seats on the board of WWE. That retirement was obviously as phony as a Vince speech saying that WWE was steroid free. He sold the company to Endeavour, the owners of the UFC and managed to keep himself in a position of power … but only for so long.
Talk is that the powers that be at the company known now as TKO, the ones from the UFC side, were less than enthusiastic about Vince and his vision of wrestling. Talk was that Triple H, sidelined by the actions of Vince pre-Endeavour sale, was back in a position of power. But when the lawsuit that Janel Grant had put on Vince and WWE had been published, Vince was out and Triple H was in, and cemented into the role of head of creative.
Paul Levesque is seen now as the saviour of WWE, which is hilarious as someone who has watched and “Observed” WWE during the early/mid 00s. It was the role that was ordained on him from the Black and Gold days of NXT, and now it's a prophecy that has come true.
There are people in the wrestling media that ramp up this story. But it was a myth. Yes, the numbers didn’t lie when it comes to box office from 2022-2024, fiscal matters improved and fan interest was better than the days of 2019. But they didn't tell the truth either.
The Netflix deal isn't going as well as people thought it would. Attendance numbers have softened and people have begun to notice, well… some people are noticing.
Paul Levesque would win the 2023 and 2024 Booker of the Year in the Observer Awards but the more critically minded people in the wrestling media have called the product under Paul’s pencil competent (to be kind) but boring (in honesty).
But the fanbase is now one that isn't revolting like in the case of Roman Reigns and in 2019. They like what they see. The live event experience is satisfactory to them and Paul Levesque is the creative uncle that can do no wrong.
Imagine if I typed that in 2003.
The UnReal documentary paints Paul Levesque as an Uncle Paul figure to the talent and a Dana White-type figure to the masses but as it also shows the Fed way isn’t fun to be around. No-one seems to have fun. Everything is micro-managed to the point that the lack of creativity is obvious when you watch an episode of RAW or Smackdown. Turns out Paul Levesque’s booking is as predictable as a Triple H control segment in one of his "dissection specials”.
So, you’re probably wondering why I have Triple H in my GOAT 100. Well, it was either him or CM Punk and I don’t really want to do 4,000 words on that man.
But also, in the US, there is a genuine argument to make that Triple H was the biggest star of the 00s …and in its first year, at least, Triple H was the best worker in the world and in a time when What Ifs get asked as thought exercises, Triple H and what happens if his quad doesn’t explode is a fascinating question to ask.
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