wrestling / Columns

The Magnificent Seven: 7 Unusual Factoids About Triple H’s WWE Career

July 12, 2017 | Posted by Mike Chin

Triple H is both a WWE legend and an unmistakable power broker in WWE. He not only has the credibility of a main event veteran, but the more formal standing of a company executive (not to mention that he married into the McMahon family.

As an on-air character, though Triple H has some fascinating statistics and factoids attached to his run. Some of them relate to his sheer longevity with the company, not to mention his political standing, but seem uniquely suited to the performer and the character (besides a few strokes of luck and happenstance). This column looks at seven unusual factoids about Triple H’s WWE career.

#7. Triple H Has Had The Longest Kayfabe Marraige In WWE History

In 1999, before the two got together in real life, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon got kayfabe married at a drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas. It looked as though heel Helmesley had taken advantage of Vince McMahon’s innocent daughter, before it was revealed to be a long-term plot between the two.

The storyline marriage lasted for about two and a half years and before Triple H turned face and said he wanted a divorce. Whether they never actually filed the paperwork, or quietly reconciled in storyline, the next time WWE revisited the couple, they were happily married again in the build to WrestleMania 25 and have remained so ever since. At minimum, that’s eight years of uninterrupted marital bliss for The Authority, and possibly as much as seventeen years if the fictional marriage never did end, far and away longer than any other storyline marriages (though the longevity was surely helped by their real life love story). In looking back, the only marriage that might contend for the recordis that between Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon, which wasn’t acknowledged on the air until the Attitude Era and which is questionable in its kayfabe longevity for each side telling the other they wanted divorce that it’s unclear if they ever actually obtained over the years.

#6. Triple H Is The Only WWE Superstar To Have Three Different Theme Songs Recorded By The Same Outside Band

After getting two theme songs performed by Chris Warren and the DX band, Triple H graduated to having music recorded for him by Motorhead.

Helmesley has spoken in numverous interviews about being a Motorhead fan, and when the WWF was at its hottest, the company struck an arrangement with the iconic British rock band to record, “The Game.” Triple H became friends with Lemmy, and it led to the band going on to record “Line in the Sand,” for Helmesley’s Evolution Faction, and finally “King of Kings,” which Triple H debuted in his WrestleMania 22 entrance.

WWE has used outside music sparingly for its talent. The company is too high profile to fly under the radar of intellectual property laws, and shrewd enough to know they can record their own music in house that they won’t need to pay licensing fees for. A select few big names have gotten to use tracks by major artists, like The Undertaker entering to Kid Rock’s “American Badass” and then Limp Bizkit’s “Rolling” in his biker persona, and CM Punk ultimately using Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality.” But via clout and developing a real life relationship with the band, Triple H is the only one to get three distinct songs from outside of WWE’s music personnel, not to mention three songs originally written for him by a major band.

#5. Triple H Has Had More WrestleMania Main Event World Title Matches Than Anyone

While names like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Rock, and John Cena are arguably more iconic than Triple H in the wrestling world, and they’ve all had their share of moments at WrestleMania, it’s interesting to note that no one has had more main event world title matches at the biggest show of the year than Triple H.

From 2000 to 2016 (WrestleManias 16 through 32) Triple H main evented ‘Mania seven times, and in every single outing there was a world championship on the line. That’s only counting proper main events that went on last as well—if we were to go by the less formal definition of main event as any big draw that WWE touts as a main event, you can surely add on Triple H defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Booker T at WrestleMania 19, and challenging for it in a Triple Threat at WrestleMania 24.

Under the last match rule, John Cena and Hulk Hogan are the closest runners up with six for Hogan (if you count his match with Yokozuna at WrestleMania 9) and four for Cena. Cena would be the biggest beneficiary of the not-the-last-match-but-still-the-main-event interpretation with eight world title main events total—still one short of Triple H under those rules.

#4. Triple H Was The First Man To Lose A WrestleMania Main Event By Submission (And Has Done It More Than Anyone Else)

Triple H, understandably, gets a lot of hate from fans on account of his WrestleMania resume and the number of times he’s won matches most agree he should have lost (the WrestleMania 16 Fatal Fourway, his blow off match with Booker T, his ‘Mania 29 rematch with Brock Lesnar, and his showdown with Sting to name the most prominent examples). Despite the perceptions that he is over-protected or has used his stroke to get wins he shouldn’t have, Triple H has lost his share of WrestleMania matches, too. I find it particularly interesting that no one had ever submitted in a WrestleMania main event before WrestleMania 20—Triple H was the first to do so, and did so in service of putting over a budding main eventer, Chris Benoit.

The rate of submission victories in ‘Mania main events has picked up since, occurring at WrestleManias 22, 23, 24, and 30. Triple H gave up at WrestleMania 22 (to John Cena’s STF), which made him not only first performer to tap out in a WrestleMania main event, but the only performer to date to have done so twice.

#3. Triple H Is The Only Wrestler To Win A World Championship At WrestleMania Who Won The Strap First On An Episode Of Raw

WrestleMania is often used as the proper grounds for a coronation of a true top-tier star—the kinds of talents who will serve as the face of the company for years to come or at least go down as WWE icons. Thus, it’s where Randy Savage, The Ultimate Warrior, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, John Cena, Batista, Rey Mysterio, and Seth Rollins all won world titles in WWE for the first time.

For those major players who do win world titles at WrestleMania, but one others first, most of them picked up their titles for the first time at other PPVs like Sid and The Rock winning their first ones at Survivor Series, or Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton winning their top titles for the first time at SummerSlam.

But on Raw?

Triple H won the WWF Championship at WrestleMania 18, but won it for the first time years earlier on an episode of Raw. This anomaly is rumored to be on account of Steve Austin refusing to drop the title to Helmesley at SummerSlam 1999, when WWE originally intended him to win the big one, so it was pushed to the next night on Raw with Mankind as the transitional champ. Just the same, it makes Triple H stand out as the only WrestleMania title winner to win the top prize first on an episode of Raw. The only somewhat analogous situations were Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart winning their first world titles on house shows, though Hogan’s example hardly counts given the era in which he won it (when house shows—and particularly house shows at MSG—were king, before PPVs had started).

#2. Triple H Is Tied For The Most SummerSlam Main Event Losses

Again, we return to the overarching perception that Triple H wins all the time. While he has been a regular presence in the main event since the late 1990s, in an interesting turn, he’s actually tied for the most SummerSlam main event losses of any WWE Superstar, having dropped a total of three main event matches at SummerSlams 1999, 2000, and 2012 (with only one SummerSlam main event win, in 2003, and arguably another main event loss if we waive the last-match-on-the-card rule to let in his Street Fight loss to Shawn Michaels in 2002).

The guy who tied Triple H in this dubious category? Another perceived golden boy, John Cena, who lost in 2011, 2013, and 2014 (though one could argue the 2011 and 2013 main event status given that someone cashed in Money in the Bank on the new champion after each of these Cena losses; I’m not making that argument, just heading off nitpickers who might in the comments section).

#1. Triple H Defeated Every Single One Of The Kliq Members One-On-One

While Triple H was a core member of the famous backstage alliance known as The Kliq, it’s interesting to note he squared off with each of his friends as on-screen enemies. On his way out the door to WCW, Razor Ramon was tasked with putting over Helmesley—still mostly in his Connecticut Blue Blood gimmick—on the house show circuit. He went on to beat X-Pac at Backlash 1999 to follow up on Triple H turning on DX at WrestleMania 15,

Triple H would lose more matches to Shawn Michaels than he’d win in their long, on-and-off rivalry in the early 2000s, but did pick up some significant wins including a Three Stages of Hell Match, and a Hell in a Cell bout. Triple H would complete the Kliq circuit years later when Kevin Nash returned for what I can only assume will be his final in-ring spell with WWE in 2011, besting the big man in a TLC Match that was well-planned to protect both men and, in particular, cover up Nash’s shortcomings for a fun, hard-hitting battle.

Only one other Kliq member matched Triple H—Shawn Michaels who got the better of everyone but Triple H much sooner, back in the 1990s, but nonetheless finished the loop before Helmesley when he first defeated him in 2002.

Which factoids would you add to the list? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.