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In Defense Of Triple H
You're DAMN RIGHT He's Over!


Hollywood Hunter-Helmsley. Poochie II. The Smartest Man in Wrestling.

You've heard the insults and accusations, usually voiced on discussion boards or Fan site by a Smark in an attempt to look hip and/or witty. ("Look guys, I figured out that "Hunter Helmsley" and "Hulk Hogan" both have the initials "HH"! Am I the next Stephen Hawkings or WHAT?!?") It seems like no matter where you go these days, Triple H is Target Zero for a certain type of fan cynicism.

...and yet... is the SAME Triple H that was voted Wrestler Of The Year by nearly every magazine, Usenet group, and fan that actually knew anything about Pro Wrestling? What gives? How could a guy nearly EVERYONE considers the hardest working wrestler working today garner such criticism?

Special Reporter Y-Pac went undercover to find out! Well, no, wait a second- what I really did was take a hard look at the actual numbers, then read the anti-H articles and noticed a disturbing pattern: It's the same four guys that are making all the noise. Yep, that's right, a mere four fans out of about 16.9 Googlebillion world-wide are engaging in this bizarre anti-H crusade. Maybe he nailed their girlfriends in High School. Maybe they're secretly intimidated by the Armadillo in his trousers. I dunno, but for whatever reason, they have a serious mad on for The Game.

Since Hunter can't be bothered to hunt them down and Pedigree them through the nearest Spanish Announcers Table himself, it falls upon me, the Y to the P to the A to the C, to stand up for our Dread Lord and Master, the Invincible H. Let's mosey through the typical Smark Criticism that gets leveled at Our Man.


Women want him.
Men want to BE him.

1- HHH Never Jobs. I guess the Smarks are following the admonition to "Always Lie Big." Either that, or they figure that guys The Rock, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Steve Austin, D'Lo Brown (!) and The Brooklyn Brawler (!!!) just don't count. By the way, how many times has Steve Austin jobbed to the Brawler recently? Hmmm. The point is that Main Eventers just don't job as much as, say, Al Snow does. Austin and The Rock jobbed even LESS than H during their heyday, a fact Smarks conveniently seem to forget.

2- HHH Never Puts Anyone Over. Unless you count Jericho (MOTY candidate, Last Man Standing, put Jericho in the Main Event) Benoit (another MOTY candidate, remained a Main Eventer until the Rock no-sold him 182 matches in a row), TAKA (H is the only man in the Fed to NOT mercilessly squash the guy), Kurt Angle (speaks for itself.) Of course, the Smarks whine that "H didn't put them over, they got over themselves". Yeah, right. When a guy H puts over fails to seize the opportunity, the Smarks whine that it's "all H's fault". When they DO seize the opportunity, "H had nothing to do with it." Where I come from, this is called "hypocrisy".

3- HHH Runs Everything Backstage! Yes, and Kane is an Undead Monster From Hell! The Undertaker can Steal Mens Souls! Gangrel is a Vampire! Vince McMahon is sleeping with Trish Stratus! Sheese. Learn to tell the difference between a Promo and Real Life, willya already?!? Sure, Triple H comes out and says "Nothing happens in this company unless I want it too!" But, see folks, that's what We In The Know like to call an Angle.

4- H Books Himself In Every Angle. Whoa, this one blows me away. The same folks that apparently have no idea what an Angle even IS are accusing H of running all of them. This one frustrates me, because how do you deal with this kind of insanity? It's like trying to convince a madman that the Sun isn't really made of Tofu. If they're so irrational that they actually believe such a concept, there's nothing anyone can do to convince them otherwise. I'll merely point out that H is involved in exactly one Angle as of this writing: His feud with Steve Austin.

5- H Stole the Royal Rumble Title Shot. You'd think that even the densest Smark would realize that a professional wrestler is expected to WRESTLE occasionally. The Rumble was H's first one-on-one title shot in about a year. Gee, what a selfish bastard. Never mind that H had been wrestling Mid-Card through most of 2000, and had been out of action for a month due to injury. Never mind that if H were as egomaniacal and all-powerful as the Smarks claim, he hardly would have been absent from the Contendership for months, vacating his spot to Benoit, Jericho, Kane, Taker, and just about everyone else in the Fed. Never mind that he JOBBED at the Rumble to BOTH Kurt Angle and Steve Austin (and here I thought he never jobbed). They didn't seem to care when Austin stole Regal's title shot. They didn't seem to care when Crash Holly got a title shot. You heard no sobs or whimpers from them when the Rock was randomly stuffed into main events. I think this goes back to the fact that the Smarks don't quite get the concept of "Face" and "Heel". For their edification: A Face is a wrestler that's paid to be a fictional Good Guy. A Heel is a wrestler that's paid to be a fictional Bad Guy. I thought Smarks were supposed to know things like that.

6- H Only Knows Four Moves. Another example "tell an insane enough lie, and some people will assume it's true just because of how obviously wrong it is". Okay now, I love Chris Benoit. But let's do a brief comparison of "Mr. Technical" to "The Game" at say, the Royal Rumble:

BENOIT HHH
Suplex High Knee
Chops O' Plenty Facebuster
Tope Suicida Knee Wrench
Diving Headbutt Indian Deathlock
Falling Suplex Out Of Ring Kneebreaker
Shoulderbreaker Grapevine
Crippler Crossface Drop Toe Hold
  Figure Four
  DDT
  Razor's Edge
  Pedigree

And notice I even gave Benoit the benefit of listing his chops, and listed his Suplex twice. And H didn't even break out the Neckbreaker or Running Knee this time. The fact is that Triple H has just about the biggest moveset in Pro Wrestling, and unlike most other wrestlers, he's constantly adding to it instead of just coasting.

7- H Is Just Like Nash/Hogan. Yeah, well, it sounds clever and all to say things like that, as long as you're sure you'll never have to back it up with facts. H is only like Nash and Hogan to the extent that all three have had periods of immense popularity. I guess some people just can't handle anyone being successful. The implied (but never stated directly) attempts to equate HHH with Nash/Hogan in terms of laziness/arrogance are so completely nuts that it's no wonder the Smarks always phrase it in terms of what "will eventually happen". Let's compare H with Nash, something the Smarks love to do in hints and nudges, but never directly because even they know how stupid they'd look:

H and Nash were friends, fellow Clique members with Hall and Michaels.
Of the four, only ONE constantly improved his skills, worked MORE instead of less, and overcame incredible obstacles to become the hardest worker in the business: HHH. Where are the others? Getting fat with the WCW, facing jail time, or sitting around their Ranch planning their next PR event.

After the MSG "Curtain Call" fiasco, Paul "HHH" Leveque was official Whipping Boy for the entire Federation. They didn't dare punish Shawn Michaels, they couldn't touch Nash or Hall, so they humiliated Triple H. Constant jobbing, demotion to curtain jerker, virtual banishment from television- Nobody would of blamed him for calling it quits. But instead, H stepped up his game. He worked his ass off to make himself the MVP of wrestling today. And he did it without screwing over anyone, whining, or succumbing to laziness or drugs the way so many of his fellows did.

You know, even though there's plenty of proof of his generosity, I wouldn't blame HHH if he DID use his influence to further his carreer. I doubt that there's a single Smark out there who, if offered a promotion at work, would say "oh, no, I'm unworthy, give the raise to Joe instead", yet they continually bitch and moan over the fact that Triple H works his ass off to stay at the top of the business. Give it a rest already. If H is on top, it's because he worked hard to get there, and the vast majority of fans want him there.


A few of the literally DOZENS of sites that named HHH "Wrestler Of The Year". I'd of posted more, but my flight for Napal leaves in an hour.

Rec.Wrestling | Raja | WOW | WWF | Moonsault

...In my first year, I won the European Championship. I won the Intercontinental Title. I won King of the Ring. I won the WWF Championship. You spent your first year wrestling Hog Pen matches or something! -WWF Champion Kurt Angle, commenting on how Triple H uses his influence to hold everyone else back.

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