The worst wrestlers who aren’t actually bad

[Carbomb]

46 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Outside of Ronda Rousey, I don't think there's a single wrestler who can say that they had their best match with Triple H, and that's a terrible legacy for a wrestler who, at his best, was supposed to be the guy who made the real top stars look good.

This is more of an "oh, you nob" point, but I would say Ted DiBiase Jr. had his best matches with Triple H, in the Legacy/DX matches.

That's a bit like saying Watford have a 100% home record in Europe, though.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Triple H's best matches were always either heavily gimmicked; on TV (so he had a tight deadline) or against someone that he couldn't physically work his style of match with.

The matches that always stand out for me, and sum up each category, are;

- 3 Stages of Hell against Austin and the street fight against Foley.

- Title match (I think) against Rikishi on one of the first Smackdowns shown in the UK.

- PPV match (possibly a Backlash) against The Big Show where they had to work it around Triple H trying to break the Big Shows fingers and hand to stop him using his finisher.

Any time he was given an opponent of similar physical capabilities on PPV, he was able to convince someone in charge that he needed 45 minutes and 100 rest holds. Utter shite.

[CavemanLynn]

My personal favourite match of Triple H's was his Judgment Day Iron Man match with The Rock, which is no surprise really, considering his approach to any big match was to go at least half that length. When he was the last man standing from that early 2000s boom after Austin retired, Rock went off to break Hollywood, and vets like Taker were winding down, he didn't really have anyone to rein him in via their own charisma and drawing power.

Edited April 8, 2025 by CavemanLynn

[air_raid]

Funnily enough two of my favourite matches of Hunter were against Undertaker at Mania 17 and 27, which is double strange because for most of the last 20 years I've found both of them to usually be pretty boring.

[westlondonmist]

There are plenty of wrestlers who I don't like such as Cena and Hogan that I understand why people have a high opinion. I'm going to be honest, I've never understood Triple H being so highly regarded. He had some decent matches with Austin, Rock, Angle and Cactus Jack but so did a lot of people. It was hard to have bad feuds with guys who oozed charisma but the only feud I really remember is Steiner. He was an abysmal face who it was impossible to get behind, as a heel he just happened to be against some of the most popular wrestlers ever. Right time, right mates. 

[DCW]

1998 rise up the midcard H was enjoyable, his feud with Rock for the IC title and the Summerslam ladder match was very good. Then watching him trying to cement a main event slot was interesting in 1999, and he had that sit down interview with the puppy drowner where 'the game' moniker was coined. I was not a fan of all the McMahon shite beyond that really, but Triple H was in very good in ring form in 2000. The Cactus feud, the feud with Rock over the WWF title culminating at Backlash were both excellent. He had decent matches with Jericho and Angle around the time too and was getting over as a tweener in late summer, but the wheels came off when he nixed the Angle/Steph love triangle and then went back heel when revealed as the Austin hit and run mastermind. It was all shite from there for me anyway, I just thank Christ he wasn't about for the Invasion due to the quad injury. If we thought Taker burying the WCW/ECW lads was bad, can only imagine how H would have handled things. He still managed to de-rail pushes for Jericho, RVD, Booker & Goldberg in the following years anyway, while being gassed up to the gills and very immobile in comparsion to 99/00 Triple H.

I couldn't really abide him beyond those days, even when he was being praised as Papa H during the initial NXT run or last year when business was booming, you could still knew it was only a matter of time before his worst instincts emerged as we have been seeing the last few months.

[RedTwoster]

Since I started watching wrestling in 2002, my only experience of him as a viewer was as a top-of-the-card brand-leading bore. 

In spite of that, if you’d asked me right up until the early 2010s what my favourite ever match was, I’d probably have said HHH/HBK from Summerslam 2002. So Triple H as an active competitor was always a weird contradiction to me - one of my least favourite wrestlers, yet he was in (at the time) my favourite ever match.

 

[TheBurningRed]

Triple H in a gimmicked match - great. Triple H in a match doesn’t have weapons/blood etc - average to good. I enjoyed his series of matches with Jeff Hardy. They had really good chemistry and despite Jeff being insanely over with the crowd, I do believe hanging with Triple H did boost him to a main event level the fans could believe in. Just on the fact HHH was that constant main eventer.

The Daniel Bryan match at Mania was his last great singles match. And that’s because of Bryan.

Kozlov, Steiner and Edge are three opponents I instantly think of when I think bad HHH matches. 

[Merzbow]

Most of Trips' worst matches seem to be him not wanting to work to his opponents strengths/hiding their weaknesses, instead forcing his then boring overlong NWA tribute style that was nowhere near as good as what he was trying to emulate.

Edited April 8, 2025 by Merzbow

[Chili]

IMO Triple H's best non bells and whistles bout was his match with (unfortunately) Chris Benoit from No Mercy 2000. It's a real banger that nobody really remembers and it's during that extremely brief period where the crowd are really into him as a face. Great match. I don't think he had a better in-ring year than 2000, it was his peak but he brought his side to the table in that year.