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Profile: Triple H
Trained by Killer Kowalski, Triple H signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1993, where he wrestled as Terra Ryzing. Playing off his real name of Paul Levesque, he later moved onto the French blue-blooded gimmick of Jean-Paul Levesque, during which time he began using the Pedigree and teamed briefly with Lord Steven (William) Regal.
In 1995 he joined the World Wrestling Federation with an American version of the same gimmick, calling himself Hunter Hearst Helmsley. After a dominant start to his WWF career, which saw him accompanied to the ring each week by a different valet, Helmsley was squashed by The Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania XII in under 90 seconds. His valet that night, Sable, suffered the brunt of Hunter's frustration at the loss, until Marc Mero rescued her and began a feud with the Greenwich snob. As part of the feud, Helmsley won his first Intercontinental Title, aligning himself briefly with Mr Perfect to outsmart champion Mero.
This came despite Hunter's punishment for the controversial Madison Square Garden incident, which saw him join best friends Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in the ring at a house show for a kayfabe-breaking farewell, as Hall and Nash were departing for WCW. As Michaels was WWF Champion at the time, the only member of the previously influencial "Clique" to suffer the consequences of flagrantly crossing the babyface/heel boundaries was Helmsley. Originally due to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, his major push was delayed for a year, while Steve Austin went on to take the crown and ignite "Austin 3:16" fever.
In an upset on a special Thursday episode of Raw, Hunter lost the Intercontinental Title in February '97 to new babyface Rocky Maivia. Helmsley went on to feud with Goldust, whilst briefly accompanied by bodyguard Curtis Hughes, later replaced by Chyna. With Chyna's help, he would finally become King of the Ring that June, defeating Mankind in the tournament final.
Later in the year, Helmsley and Chyna began associating on-screen with Shawn Michaels, eventually forming heel faction D-Generation X, with Hunter dropping his aristocrat gimmick and gradually adopting the nickname Triple H. As juvenile rebels pushing the envelope of good taste and decency, DX feuded with fellow heels The Hart Foundation until the 1997 Survivor Series when, amidst a cloud of controversy involving the Montreal Screwjob, the majority of the opposing faction left the WWF.
During the feud, Triple H had assisted Michaels in defeating The British Bulldog for the European Title. On the Christmas episode of Raw, in an effort to create a rift in the group that had persistently mocked him in recent weeks, WWF Commissioner Slaughter ordered Michaels to defend the title against Hunter. After playing up tension between them, the degenerates acted out a farce of a match, with Michaels essentially laying down for his ally, handing Triple H the European Title. Hunter would go on to feud with Owen Hart, the only remaining member of The Hart Foundation, for the championship, culminating in a victory at WrestleMania XIV.
On the same pay-per-view, Michaels wrestled his last match in the Federation for over four years, forcing Triple H to rebuild D-Generation X the next night on Raw. Alongside Chyna, Hunter introduced former Clique member Sean Waltman, previously known as The 1-2-3 Kid but now taking the name of X-Pac. Road Dogg and Billy Gunn, collectively known as The New Age Outlaws, made the group even bigger, and together they embarked on a short feud with The Disciples of Apocalypse.
The faction turned babyface with its verbal assault on WCW (involving segments filmed outside WCW headquarters and an arena hosting Monday Nitro) and feud with The Nation of Domination, which saw Triple H settle a score from the previous year by defeating leader The Rock (Rocky Maivia) in a ladder match for the Intercontinental Title. When The Rock joined The Corporation at Survivor Series '98, DX feuded with this stable, with Hunter gunning for his rival's WWF Championship. In January 1999, the pair fought for the gold in an "I Quit" match, in which Helmsley quit to protect Chyna from being chokeslammed by Corporation member Kane. Chyna then attacked the DX leader, seemingly betraying him. However, the truth emerged at WrestleMania XV, when the couple reunited to turn heel on X-Pac, leaving D-Generation X to join The Corporation.
As a member of the McMahons' faction, Triple H was instrumental in booting The Rock out of the group, and would challenge for the WWF Title. At SummerSlam '99, he and Mankind challenged Steve Austin in a Triple Threat match refereed by Jesse Ventura, with Mankind emerging as champion. The next night however, Triple H defeated Mankind for his first WWF Title, with rumor having it that Austin did not want to job directly to the rising star.
By this time, Hunter had left The Corporation and in September, he lost the championship to Vince McMahon on an episode of SmackDown with the unlikely help of mutual enemy Steve Austin. When McMahon vacated the title, Triple H regained it in a Six Pack Challenge at Unforgiven. The animosity between the two characters intensified when Hunter interrupted the in-ring wedding of Vince's daughter Stephanie and Test, revealing that he had already married the drugged-up bride in a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas. As Stephanie reacted with horror at the video evidence, Vince vowed to defend her honor and the two battled at Armageddon. During the match, Stephanie revealed where her true loyalties lay, double-crossing her father and helping her on-screen husband Triple H to victory.
Together, the Hunter and Stephanie characters led the McMahon-Helmsley Era, abusing Stephanie's power within the company to keep the WWF Title around Triple H's waist as much as possible, supported by reuniting DX members X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws. In early 2000, Hunter defeated Cactus Jack (Mankind) in a brutal streetfight and retired him via Hell in a Cell, though Mick Foley would briefly return as himself at WrestleMania for a Fatal Four Way with Triple H's gold on the line. In this match, a McMahon would be in every corner, with Stephanie supporting her husband, Shane backing The Big Show, Linda behind Foley, and babyface Vince encouraging The Rock. However, in a gesture to reunite his fractured family, Vince turned on The Rock to enable Triple H to retain the WWF Title, becoming the first heel to ever do so at WrestleMania.
Mid-2000 saw a love triangle develop as fellow heel Kurt Angle became amorous towards Stephanie, but the feud did not fully play out. Later in the year, Hunter feuded with Steve Austin, this time defeating him in a Three Stages of Hell match. In 2001, he added The Undertaker to his list of defeated stars at WrestleMania X-Seven, then aligned himself the next night with a newly heel-turned and WWF Champion Austin to form The Two-Man Power Trip. Hunter defeated Jeff Hardy for the Intercontinental Title and the pair won the WWF Tag Team Titles from Kane and The Undertaker, before losing the tag straps to Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho in May. During this match, Triple H suffered a torn quadriceps muscle, putting him out of action for the remainder of the year until a hyped babyface return the following January.
After winning the 2002 Royal Rumble and splitting on-screen with Stephanie (who had pretended to be pregnant to hold off the eventual divorce), he challenged Chris Jericho for the Undisputed Title at WrestleMania X8, with Stephanie in Jericho's corner. Triple H won the gold, but lost it a month later at Backlash to Hulk Hogan and was drafted to the SmackDown brand in the first Draft Lottery, where he continued his feud with Jericho until winning a Hell in a Cell match at Judgment Day.
Around this time, Shawn Michaels returned to WWE in a non-wrestling role and tried to court his old D-Generation X partner into jumping to the Raw brand. Hunter did so, and accompanied Michaels out to the ring for an official DX reunion, only to Pedigree him into the mat, turning heel. A challenge was soon issued for SummerSlam, when Michaels would return to action for the first time since WrestleMania XIV to battle Triple H in a "non-sanctioned" streetfight. Despite losing the match, Triple H attacked his opponent with what had become his trademark weapon, a sledgehammer, extending the feud for several months. During this time, The Game was awarded the World Heavyweight Title by Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff, due to the WWE Title becoming exclusive to SmackDown. In the first ever Elimination Chamber at Survivor Series, he lost the gold to Michaels, but regained it the following month in a Three Stages of Hell match.
In January 2003, already aligned with Ric Flair, Triple H recruited Randy Orton and Batista to form the faction Evolution, intended to represent the past, present and future of the business, whilst also protecting his World Heavyweight Title. At one point the following December, all four members of the group had gold around their waists, and Triple H dominated the main event throughout 2003. During this year, he briefly unified the Intercontinental Title with his own championship, unmasking Kane in the process.
At WrestleMania XX in March 2004, Hunter defended the gold against lasting nemesis Shawn Michaels and Royal Rumble winner Chris Benoit, tapping out to Benoit's Crippler Crossface to lose the title. After defeating Michaels in a marathon Hell in a Cell match at Bad Blood, Hunter engaged in a mini-feud with newcomer Eugene before turning his attention to Randy Orton. After Orton won the World Heavyweight Title from Benoit at SummerSlam, Triple H kicked him out of Evolution and feuded with him for the gold, claiming it the following month at Unforgiven. However, a controversial finish to a Triple Threat match also involving Edge and Chris Benoit led to the title being vacated. In January 2005 at New Year's Revolution, Hunter was victorious inside the Elimination Chamber to begin his tenth reign with a top championship.
Around this time, Evolution began to crumble further, as Batista, the muscle of the group, grew more independent and had designs on Triple H's title. After winning the Royal Rumble, Batista resisted his leader's manipulations and challenged him for the gold at WrestleMania 21, where he defeated The Game for his first World Heavyweight Title. Triple H would challenge his former stablemate at the next two Raw pay-per-views, including a Hell in a Cell match at Vengeance, but was unable to earn championship victory number eleven. After taking time off to focus on other projects out of the ring, Triple H returned at the special WWE Homecoming edition of Raw in October, to a hero's welcome. However, that night he turned heel on babyface Ric Flair, and feuded with him for the next two months.
After unsuccessfully challenging John Cena for the WWE Title at WrestleMania 22, Hunter turned face and reunited (truthfully this time) with Shawn Michaels as D-Generation X. For most of 2006, the anti-authority duo feuded with Vince and Shane McMahon, along with cheerleading lackeys The Spirit Squad, who they regularly dominated in competition. The rivalry officially ended at Unforgiven, when DX defeated the McMahons and The Big Show in Hunter's seventh Hell in a Cell match. The team then entered a feud with Randy Orton and Edge (collectively Rated-RKO) until New Year's Revolution when Triple H suffered his second quadriceps tear, this time in his other leg, five years to the day after returning from the first. And, as with the first injury, it occurred while competing for the WWE World Tag Team Titles.
One of the most criticized wrestlers on the Internet due to his real-life marriage to Stephanie and subsequent influence with the McMahons, Triple H is nonetheless respected as one of the top stars in the company in his own right, and one of the best heels in the business when so inclined. With the future of WWE looking likely to rest partly in his hands, there are few wrestlers active today as powerful or as successful as The Game.
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