Trivia / Triple H

• Commonality Connection: The source of his friendship with professional boxer, Floyd Mayweather, whom he met when they got him to agree to face Big Show for WrestleMania 24. They've consistently praised each other highly as people & professionals, as well as openly confirm their friendship.
• Creator Couple: With Stephanie McMahon. Both work behind-the-scenes in WWE.
• Defictionalization: Although a native of Nashua, New Hampshire, he was billed from Greenwich, Connecticut ever since he debuted with his "Connecticut Blueblood" gimmick. Although he no longer uses the gimmick, he has since moved to Greenwich after marrying Stephanie McMahon in real life (who's considered wrestling royalty) and starting a family there.
• Enforced Method Acting: During his famous hardcore match against Cactus Jack at the 2000 Royal Rumble, the look of absolute shock on Triple H's face when Jack kicked out of his first Pedigree was absolutely real- Foley had called an audible in the ring, kicking out of what was supposed to be the match-winning move on his own initiative because he'd decided he'd rather have Trips Pedigree him again face first onto a pile of thumbtacks. With that knowledge, Trips's expression is presumably a mix of surprise at Mick's audacity, horror at the prospect of having to slam his coworker face-down on the tacks, and fear at the knowledge that he's going to have to leap into the air and come down legs-first onto the thumbtacks himself.
• Fake Nationality: His Jean-Pierre Levesque seems to have been supposed to be a French-Canadian (although his father is French-Canadian).
• Hostility on the Set: Too many to count, thanks to his politicking with the Kliq during the New Generation Era and his bad habit of burying talent during the Ruthless Aggression Era. The most famous modern day-example, however, is his frosty relationship with CM Punk — by Punk's own admission during his infamous podcast with Colt Cabana, the two flat-out hated each other. And it definitely showed onscreen whenever they had a serious feud (which ironically gave them great chemistry on the mic). They've finally managed to bury the hatchet in 2023 after Punk's less-than-amicable exit from All Elite Wrestling, when the two had an hour-long conversation and put the past behind, allowing Punk to return back to the company at Survivor Series 2023.
• Irony: He has the weird distinction of being on the small list of wrestlers who have lost to both former WWE World Heavyweight Champion the Ultimate Warrior and to... the Brooklyn Brawler. It's even crazier considering how the other guys on that list (Brian "The Crippler" Costello, Dusty Wolfe and Jose Estrada Sr., aka Conquistador #1) were primarily jobbers in WWE and never came close to anything resembling HHH's success.
• Irony as She Is Cast: He was in a string of beer commercials a few years ago, and even guest-starred in on an episode of The Drew Carey Show where, under the ring name "the Disciplinarian", becomes a sponsor of Buzz Beer and after over-indulging in Vegas, he ends up telling kids to never drink, as the beer was the one thing that could kick his ass. For the most part, he's a teetotaler in real life.
• Life Imitates Art: His real-life marriage to Stephanie McMahon, which was preceded by an onscreen marriage about 4 years prior in 1999. The onscreen marriage resulted in Stephanie's father Vince and Triple H aligning themselves to create the McMahon-Helmsley Regime. While not malicious in any way, the real marriage probably did give Triple H the edge when it came time to nominate someone for the Vice-President of Talent and Live Events position in the WWE front office. That however, IS malicious.
• Old Shame:
  • The Katie Vick angle. He admitted in various interviews that the Katie Vick angle was awful to start with.
  • His brief WCW stint as "Terra Ryzing," also stated on his DVD Thy Kingdom Come.
  • Then there was the time that Ultimate Warrior no-sold the Pedigree and pinned him a minute later. Even worse? That was at Wrestlemania XII, about two months before the Curtain Call. He called it the worst moment in his career for a reason, though that statement could've been a Take That! at the Warrior. Worst of all was that the poor match can't really be blamed on Hunter. The Ultimate Warrior didn't show up for any of the promo sessions and Hunter had to pretty much promote the whole match himself even though it was UW's comeback match after a three-year hiatus. You can't blame him too much for being a bit annoyed about his first WM match going like it did.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • He started out as a huge fan of the 80s-era NWA, then became a WCW jobber, and then moved to the WWF, where he became one of the top stars. Now he's the COO of the company in kayfabe (although he's a "Senior Advisor" to Vince McMahon, helping run shows, and heading up Talent Development in real life) before taking over the creative entirely during WWE's buyout by Endeavor, with Vince being Kicked Upstairs and Nick Khan running the business side of the companity.
  • He's also been a huge fan of Motörhead ever since he was a kid, and when WWE brought up the idea to use the band for his new theme without knowing that, of course Triple H jumped at the chance. Since then, he and the band have been pretty tight, with Motorhead performing his theme live at a couple of Wrestlemanias and Triple H even growing out a Lemmy-style mustache/chop combination as an homage and giving a eulogy at Lemmy's funeral.
  • In an odd combination of both of the above, some say Triple H's mustache/chop combination is as much an homage to Lemmy Kilminster (whose band Trips is a fan of, to the point they even did three of his entrance themes) as is to Harley Race (whom Triple H owes much more of his style to than Flair). Triple H even repeated an angle with Goldberg that Race and Flair did in the early 80s (note the very, very familiar moustache/chop combo).
• Protection from Editors: During the press rounds for SmackDown Vs RAW 2011, a memo was leaked where WWE HQ asked everyone who was covering the game to not use any screenshots in which Triple H was in a vulnerable or losing position.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Or rather, The Plot Wrote Real Life. Triple H was originally billed from Greenwich, Connecticut as part of his "Connecticut Blueblood" gimmick. He has since long dropped the "Blueblood" gimmick, but he has now married into the McMahon family, which is for all intents and purposes Professional Wrestling royalty, and lives with his wife Stephanie in Greenwich.
  • Triple H's quad injury in 2001 forced him out of action until 2002 ... which allowed him to escape the universally-despised InVasion storyline. One could argue that he lucked out in that regard, and his famous return pop in 2002 before the Royal Rumble was most likely aided by the fact that he was untainted from that mess.
  • He was a part of the infamous kayfabe-breaking Madison Square Garden "Curtain Call" (where Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels hugged each other in the middle of the ring following a match); since Hall and Nash were heading off to WCW, and Michaels was the WWF Champion at the time and one of the promotion's biggest drawing performers, they could not be punished, so Triple H had to take the fall. His main event push was delayed for quite a while and was demoted from being a championship contender to jobber for the next several months as punishment. Interestingly, Triple H was originally supposed to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament and receive the push that usually went with it. This turned out to have a major impact on the WWE's future: After the "Curtain Call", the tournament win would instead go to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, igniting his rise toward superstardom, an event which ultimately helped the then-WWF defeat WCW in the Monday Night Wars.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were kayfabe married in 1999 and (again, kayfabe) divorced in 2002, but they got married in Real Life in 2003. Their real-life marriage appears to have had none of the turmoil that they had in the early 2000s.
  • Before marrying McMahon, he also dated Chyna. Which kind of became a massive Tear Jerker on his part when she passed away, as what little that had been seen of him after the news broke made it clear that he, understandably, hadn't taken it very well.
• Shrug of God: Upon being faced with the question of why there's a high level of disparity between NXT and the Takeovers compared with Raw, Smackdown and the PP Vs, he had this to say:
  "Everybody has opinions. I'm sure you've heard that quote before. Yeah, everybody has opinions. Look, you just try to put out the best product you can put out. For me, it's a different reach and a different vibe. If you're a fan of a certain genre of music, you just like that music better. If you go to that concert, you like that concert better. It's a big world, lot of fans. WWE has almost a billion followers on social media, number one channel for sports, number two channel overall on YouTube. We got a lot of people watching. Some of them like different things. It's just funny people believe what they believe is the answer. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting business, there's enough product to go around for everybody."
• Wag the Director: Like the other members of the Kliq, Triple H is infamous for his amount of backstage politicking. There's too many examples to count, but his particular bad habit of burying talent during the Ruthless Aggression Era is an overall good start.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally HHH was penciled in to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, but after the "Curtain Call", someone had to get punished. And, since Nash and Hall were leaving for WCW anyway and burying Shawn Michaels in the middle of a huge main event run probably would've cost the company money, Hunter's push was what got the axe. One can only imagine what could have happened if HHH had won the '96 King of the Ring instead of Austin.
  • Had he not been injured in 2001, Triple H would have turned face and challenge a heel Austin for the WWF Championship throughout the summer. Which would mean that the InVasion angle would at least have been interesting to watch.
  • Was supposed to be a tag team with Steven Regal in WCW, but he jumped to WWF when his contract with WCW expired. Even when WWF showed interest, they also wanted Regal, but Regal had a lucrative multi-year deal.
  • Had Kevin Nash not been on the blood-medication Plavix he would have been medically approved to wrestle during the Nash/CM Punk story-line that had been set up, which would have led to John Laurinaitis trying to take over the company by firing Vince and then coming after Triple H as he would be the next in line to lead the company. The Triple H/Kevin Nash angle that resulted would not have happened until farther down the line when Nash either joined Laurinaitis or not at all if Nash had joined Triple H. Article about it here.
  • Before Hornswaggle was revealed to be Vince McMahon's (kayfabe) illegitimate child, the lawyer handling the affair gave clues as to who said illegitimate child's identity was. Eventually, it looked as though Triple H himself was the one in question. Both McMahon and Helmsley (who were in the ring together while this was all going down) gave each other looks that screamed "You've got to be f—-king kidding me!" while the crowd was buzzing over the notion. One can only imagine the storyline that would have played out if it had turned out to be true (given Vince's well-known creepy obsession with incest, it's probably what he wanted to do before getting talked out of it).
• Word of St. Paul: A common belief among the IWC was that "The Game" gimmick and the subsequent main event push it carried were originally supposed to go to Owen Hart, which would have seen a Shoo Out the Clowns moment as he threw off his then-current Blue Blazer comedy gimmick and re-established himself as a cerebral wrestler's wrestler. Of course, most fans with a working knowledge of wrestling history know what happened to Owen as the Blue Blazer before that switch could take place.^note Not to mention Owen's intentions to leave the business once his contract with the company expired, as he expressed in an interview. Said claim was supported by Triple H himself supposedly admitting so in an interview. However, Triple H himself later stated in an interview on Loudwire in 2020 that "The Game" was not meant for Owen Hart nor intended for anybody (instead coming as a result of an off-the-cuff remark in an unscripted promo with Jim Ross) and that he has no idea where the rumor came from.

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