411’s WWE Rivals Report: Triple H vs. The Rock

-WWE on A&E is back and the means Rivals: Season 3 is here. We start with a rivalry that may be getting rekindled in today’s WWE. The difference being it could be for control of the company instead of a Championship. Let’s get to it!

-As a reminder this show is the baby of Freddy Prinze Jr. and he hosts the show at a table with other talking heads. For this episode he is being joined by Renee Paquette (listed by that name and mentioned as a former WWE announcer), Kevin Owens, Johnny Gargano, and JBL. Renee was part of Season 2 before she joined AEW, so I assume this was filmed then and was just a hold over for season three.

-Renee notes there isn’t a person on the planet that doesn’t know who The Rock is. The rivalry started with each man in very different places from where they are now. HHH was Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the Connecticut Blueblood, and he became The IC Champion in late 1996.

-The Rock was the blue-chip, third generation, happy to be here babyface that smiled way too much. Bruce Prichard admits they were guilty of shoving Rocky Maivia down everyone’s throats. Rocky made his debut in MSG at Survivor Series 1996. JR: “There is going to be the man right there.” No kidding! Hunter was in that Survior Series match and it was the first time Rock and Hunter touched inside a wrestling ring. Rock is the sole survivor and a star is born….eh, not really.

-Kane says there was jealousy as the boys questioned why they were pushing this kid. HHH says Rock took a ton of heat. Bret stooges on HHH burying Rock to him, and says HHH picked on him every night. HHH: “This might be my selective memory, but I don’t recall fucking with him that much.”

-HHH was the IC Champion, and they wanted Rock to get to that level. HHH brings up Vince coming to him in Lowell, Mass and telling him he would be dropping the title to the new kid tonight. HHH: “I was pissed.” Shawn says that is where the heat came. HHH remembers the fans cheering him even though he was supposed to be hated. Rock gets the win with a small package and most of the crowd cheers, but some aren’t happy.

-So instead of cheering for Rocky, we get “Rocky Sucks.” Kevin Owens brings up the Die Rocky Die sign and he remembers seeing it and thinking it had to be the worst thing. The office told Rock to just keep smiling through it and we get some great behind the scenes footage of them coaching Rock to smile more and you can tell he is getting pissed off. “Should I end it with a smile?” he responds with great sarcasm.

-WrestleMania 13: The Rock defends The IC against The Sultan (Rikishi). THE BLOODLINE EXPLODES! Rock knew on this night he desperately needed a change because of the optics of his fathering having to save him and fight his battles.

-Commercials!

-The crowd really doesn’t like this Rock character and the Hunter character is a joke as well as the Attitude of the fans starts to change. The idea was to turn Rock heel and have him join The Nation of Domination. It was genius and saved his career! The Rock notes he was finally able to be authentic.

-Shawn says he and Hunter were on the Wrestle-Vessel and were shooting the breeze and threw out the idea of teaming together. That leads to DX and HHH notes that everyone in the back called him Triple H, so it was a way to get away from the Blueblood character, but not change the name all that much. He says the same as Rock in that it was a chance to be himself. Foley notes HHH can be a funny guy and prankster, and he could show that.

-The Rock takes over The Nation when he lays out Faarooq. HHH takes over DX when Shawn destroys his back. He cuts a famous promo the night after Mania 14 and took over DX and added The Outlaws and a returning Sean Waltman.

-This leads to a natural feud between The Nation and DX, which turned DX into babyfaces. I assume we won’t be seeing The Nation parody due to the blackface. It was this rivalry that put Rock and HHH on another level and you could see both men were going to be futures of the company.

-KO mentions it was a race between the two to see who the next top guy would be. JBL says they both wanted to be that guy, and they were in each other’s way. Steve Austin talks about the meaning and history of the IC Title. It was the workman’s title!

-Fully Loaded 1998: The match that opened the eyes of the public to how good both men could be. They have a really good 2 out of 3 falls match that ended in a 30 minute draw at 1 fall each.

-HHH says Vince told him that he was moving him away from Rock because he knew they didn’t see eye to eye. HHH told Vince to hold on as he and Rock were money in the ring. It didn’t matter to HHH if they got along outside the ring, as they were good inside the ring together.

-Nation destroys HHH on an episode of RAW and leave him bloody after using a ladder. Yep, we know where that is leading.

-Commercials!

-SummerSlam 98: Now here is that match that officially put both of them on the map as future top stars. Just a fantastic match that stole the show. HHH says their plan was not to fly off the ladder, but use the ladder to beat the hell out of each other. It worked! HHH gets the win and IC Title, but that Rock looked like a million dollars and he was the one about to get moved up the card. For some reason I always thought it was cool that the ladders they were using were yellow. It just stood out and made it memorable for some reason. Another cool behind the scenes moment as they show Rock walking back through the curtain and being congratulated by Russo while Austin and Taker are discussing things in the background.

-JBL notes you can only push one really big at the time and the decision was to push The Rock.

-Survivor Series 1998: The WWE resists turning Rock face and instead he wins the WWF Title and becomes The Corporate Champion. Genius move!

-We see a RAW segment where HHH notes that Rock has been sucking on his nuts. HHH: “There were times we said things the other guy thought was a little stiff.” HHH says they never went to dinner, or hung out, but they had amazing chemistry. They both wanted the same thing and they pushed each other. Prichard notes that fans believed Rock and HHH didn’t like each other and the truth is they didn’t like each other.

-Commercials!

-HHH says he was always watching what was happening. Austin was the babyface and Rock was on his way to becoming one as well just because of his charisma and mic work. HHH knew there was an open spot for a top heel and he wanted it.

-WrestleMania XV: I just watched this show today as I have been running through every Mania to see how many I can get through before XL. HHH turn on X-Pac to turn heel and break away from DX. This is the kick start of HHH’s ascent to the top of the card on the heel side. KO notes it was a shift from the immature DX guy to an ass kicker that would try to kill you if that’s what it took. HHH from 1999 says that people want to be the cool bad guy, but he did it all the way because he didn’t want to be cheered or liked.

-Fully Loaded 1999: The feud for the second consecutive summer and are on the undercard of Austin/Taker (that happened a ton during The Attitude Era). HHH notes they just kept finding their way back to each other. They had a pretty sweet strap match that wasn’t about touching corners and instead was about getting a pin. HHH wins and earns a WWF Title Match at SummerSlam.

-We skip that though as HHH didn’t get the win there and didn’t even get a one on one match with Austin as Foley was inserted to make it a 3 Way. There have been a lot of stories and conspiracies about why that happened. Some said Austin didn’t want to JOB to HHH and another was that Jesse Ventura didn’t want to raise the hand of a heel winning The Title. Either way, Foley ended up with a 24 hour reign as Champion before losing it to HHH the next night on RAW.

-HHH says it was a huge and very real moment. I always like seeing guys win the WWE Title for the first time to see when the character breaks and the real emotion comes out.

-We get video of Rock and HHH tearing into each other on the mic. ROCK’S HHH IMPRESSION UGH. Renee fans over Rock’s promos and how nobody stood a chance of challenging him on the mic. Rock was also great at turning a phrase and everyone at school was repeating them. Undertaker notes Rock could easily bury someone on the mic and if you couldn’t hang, you were screwed.

-HHH notes that there were points they didn’t like each other. Old footage from 1999 shows HHH saying he respects Rock but he is selfish. He is just waiting to see who tries to stab him in the back.

-Commercials!

-We jump to Jan of 2000 and The Rock wins The Royal Rumble (Big Show got screwed) and is heading to WrestleMania against HHH. Then the WWE overthought things and decided to put Big Show and Mick Foley into the match plus a McMahon in every corner. HHH notes what I just said about it being just him vs. Rock. Brian Gewirtz says the plans changed as they knew they could get to Rock/HHH down the line, but went with the bells and whistles of every McMahon in a corner. Pretty stupid for WrestleMania. I mean, good on Show and Foley getting a Mania Main Event, but they were after thoughts.

-WrestleMania 2000 (XVI): Show gets eliminated without really breaking a sweat, and Foley thought he was retired so he wasn’t in the best shape. We get down to Rock/HHH and for the first time in Mania history, a heel closes the show as WWF Champion. HHH says it was bittersweet as it should have been him and Rock in a singles match. JBL mentions that HHH is 10-14 at WrestleMania, so he has done a lot to make people. This was a time he needed to win and get his character over. Why am I not shocked that JBL is defending the company for shitting on the fans at the biggest show of the year? Gewirtz: “We aren’t going to wait a year to fix that miscarriage of justice, we’re going to wait a month.” Something, something Cody! Something something Finish The Story!

-Backlash 2000: We get the match and result we should have had at WrestleMania as Rock pins HHH to win the WWF Title. Rock notes the matches he had in 2000 with HHH were some of the best of his career. They had a lot of trust, and both had the desire to be the best. Listen to the crowd explode when Rock gets the pin.

-Freddy brings up Rock hosting SNL (that happened before Mania I believe) and HHH had a cameo (Show and Foley did as well). I guess we are skipping the best match between the two: The Iron Man Match. Rock goes to Hollywood while HHH becomes a top executive and builds the future of WWE with NXT. Man, we just jumped forward rather quickly there.

-Commercials!

-SmackDown: Oct 2014: The Rock and HHH had a great segment backstage where they tease having a match. HHH notes that Rock came to him and said he wanted to do another WrestleMania, so they shot the backstage segment. He notes it was so easy to slip back into those roles and it set-up their interaction at WrestleMania 31. LEVI’S STADIUM! 49ER FANS! No, I am not over The Super Bowl yet. STUPID PUNT JUST HAS TO FALL OUT OF THE SKY AND LAND ON THE HEEL OF A NINER. Now that is a heel turn that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Yes, I made that joke. Dad jokes are a way to make me laugh behind the heartbreak.

-Anyway, WrestleMania 31: No match between the two, but Rock gets yelled at by HHH and Stephanie, so he pulls Ronda Rousey out of the crowd (though they don’t include Ronda at all in this and just focus on Rock laying the SmackDown on the Rock). We cut backstage where they talk about being thrust into the top spot and being so hungry as they all wanted that top spot. They pat each other on the back and share a hug.

-They note Rock became Hollywood’s biggest star and HHH is running creative in WWE now.

-HHH and Rock discuss all the matches they had against each other. Rock says it doesn’t matter who wins or loses as all they wanted to do was tear down the house. Oh, I don’t buy that that they didn’t care who wins or loses. Rock notes there is nobody like HHH and he appreciates him as a friend and brother. HHH says they were kids and grew up fighting over each spot on the rung and there is a brotherhood that can never be broken between them.

-Good opening episode for the third season. This was a good choice as they had a long rivalry that moved both men up the card until each became an all time great. Several times they mentioned they didn’t like each other, but they never went any deeper than that. They touched on nearly all the top moments (minus a couple) and it was an easy watch. I enjoyed the few times they gave us behind the scene footage and the talking heads were solid. The format is still a little weird with Freddy and crew at the Round Table, but having stock footage or new footage from various other talking heads. It was a nice surprise to see Renee on a WWE project again even if it was likely filmed before she headed to AEW. Overall, an enjoyable episode and this series will continue to be up the alley because I love nostalgia and the history of this business. Thanks for reading!