Triple H--Blue Blood and Brawn


By Helen A. Lee
This interview appeared
as an Upbeat Online feature
on iSyndicate in April 2001.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley, best known by his initials in the World Wrestling Federation, is at the top of his game. While he may not be the champion anymore, he’s still as popular as ever-and, as shown in this interview, he’s got an unequaled passion for “the business.” Born Paul Michael Levesque, Triple H learned his craft at Walter “Killer” Kowalski’s wrestling school in Boston. After a stint at the IWF as Terra Ryzing, he made his debut with WCW in 1994. Soon, he became Jean-Paul Levesque-a snobby character who lost more than he won. A year later, he joined the WWF as Triple H, a “rich kid from Connecticut.” Vince McMahon gave him a push, and his persona got an overhaul in 1997 with the creation of D-Generation X. In 1998, Triple H defeated Owen Hart to win the WWF’s European championship and, after Shawn Michaels was injured, he became the leader of DX. In 1999, he turned on DX and joined the Corporate Ministry. Late that year he also married Stephanie McMahon, beginning the era of the McMahon-Helmsley Regime.

Over the course of his career, Triple H has feuded with some of the WWF’s favorite personalities, including The Rock, Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin. He went into 2000’s Wrestlemania event as champion-and, in a Wrestlemania first-left as champion as well. His career has had its setbacks, though; for example, on Scott Hall and Kevin Nash’s last night with the WWF, the two lost their matches. Instead of following the script, Triple H and Shawn Michaels celebrated in the ring. This event got Vince McMahon mad, and Triple H didn’t win the King of the Ring tournament as planned. But this just goes to prove that Triple H is his own man. In an UPBEAT interview, the star wrestler talks about other wrestlers, his own way of doing things, and his job-the best job in the world. Even through the tough times, he says, ‘I wouldn’t change a second of it. You learn from your mistakes and you learn from your successes, and it’s all brought me to where I am and I’m happy with that. Hell, I still make mistakes now, and I’m still learning from all of them-so it’s a never-ending process, right?’

UPBEAT During your time in WWF, you’ve refined and honed your skills, and become one of the organization’s most popular and tough bad guys. How much do you attribute your success to the people you work with in the ring?

Triple H “Nobody is a one man show, that’s the thing about our business. Last year when the Rock and I (battled), I needed the Rock as much as the Rock needed Triple H-it takes two. We’ve both got to dance together in there, and then beyond that it takes the promotion of the company and its all aspects. You can perform and do all those things, but all the other aspects need to be there also. I’m only as good as the people around me to a degree. I mean I can do my part, but I have to have everybody else around me, so a lot of success on anybody’s part is going to be attributed to the people around them.”

UPBEAT Is there any one wrestler who brings out the best in you?

Triple H “I don’t necessarily think there’s one guy, but there’s definitely certain performers that I really enjoy working with. And it’s gonna seem like a fairly long list-Mick Foley, Rock, Undertaker. We’ve never had a major deal on TV but the times I have worked with him have been just great. The thing about the WWF is that our talent is so strong-and not only just from a talent standpoint but from a passion for the business standpoint. We all give it so much, and our lives and our heart and souls go into the product, and that’s what makes it special between the guys in the ring. So anybody that is willing to put their heart and soul into the ring I love working with.”

UPBEAT What direction would you like to see the WWF take with Triple H in the next year?

Triple H “You know it’s hard to say, because the business changes so fast. So to say I would like to be here in a year, obviously I want to stay in the mix at the top and be a top guy and be focused around the WWF title and all those things, but I just want to keep being involved in great angles, working with great talent and just to continue to have the company prosper and be successful. The thing to me about these things, they’re not destinations, it’s just a trip. You just kind of go along and you do what’s right and that’s where we’re going. And the thing about this business for us-a lot of times I just look at it and think, I’m just a big kid who gets to live his dream every day, so I can’t have a bad day, really."

UPBEAT Is it true that you have some influence in the angles and with the booking team? Do you enjoy that? And do you see a future for yourself in that kind of work?

Triple H “I’ve always loved that side of the business. There’s just something fun about that thought process and the creative process of where characters are going and what they would do. I just enjoy it. People say, ‘You’re part of the booking team,’ or whatever. I wouldn’t necessarily say that-I give my input, I go to a lot of the meetings, I have a lot of input on my behalf. Whether it’s used or not used, that’s up to Vince and the writing team. I give my opinion and a lot of times, most times, it’s funny because I’ll hear people say, ‘Oh you know they say that you just go in there and change your stuff around.’ Half the time it’s not even about my stuff. I go in there and other people’s stuff is just as much fun to me. I love the wrestling business and it’s not just the performance part of going out there, so I just have a lot of fun doing all aspects of it. So certainly, when my physical side of this business is done I would love to do that. I would love to be involved in the behind-the-scenes and putting together the matches and putting together the angles and designing characters and all those things. To be behind the scenes to me is a lot of fun.”

UPBEAT In a business full of egos, you’re pretty well known for being able to work with anyone. Is that a change from your former mode of operation, something you learned from others along the way?

Triple H: “A little of both. I think anytime that you see anybody doing something-whether it’s right or wrong-I think how can you not learn from that? You look at everything that happens every day around you and you learn from it. I saw people do that in the business to where they became a certain thing and then said, ‘Well, I’m not working with that guy, he’s not at my level,’ or ‘I’m not working with him, he’s beneath me.’ To hell with that-I never understood the logic of when you’re on top in this business, now you try to push everybody else away from you. To me, when you’re on top of this business, certainly you protect your spot because that’s self-preservation. And anybody that doesn’t think that in any job, I don’t care what you do-if you’re not looking out for your job you’re an idiot. But at the same time, in our business when you get to the top, to me it’s your responsibility to reach down and grab the guys underneath you and say, ‘Come here, let me show you the way, somebody showed it to me let me show it to me and I will pull you up with me,’ and that’s what you do. And it doesn’t matter how low down you gotta reach because everybody starts out in the same place and the people you shit on, excuse me, the people you jump on on the way up are the same people you meet on the way down. I don’t believe that there’s anybody beneath anybody in this business. Yeah, there were guys that are right now in certain spots and guys that are in other certain spots, but we’re all doing the same job. And that guy might be on top tomorrow-and hopefully he is because when he’s on top it’s my intent to still be there and I’m gonna make money with him.”

UPBEAT As a wrestler who’s always out there, you get hurt a lot. How do you deal with injuries?

Triple H “I’m very bad about policing myself as far as my injuries go. I have a very bad habit of, when I’m hurt, I say, ‘To hell with it, I can endure this, I can go on I can be the guy that just doesn’t stop,’ and that’s just me. For example, when I had this back injury this past year, the injury itself really wasn’t a serious thing, it was progressive. I hurt it earlier in the year and over the next six months it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I just kept letting it go and I just kept saying nothing and not taking any time off and just not selling it and just going on. And that’s just me, that’s how I was brought up in the business. I’m no tougher than anybody else, believe me, but that’s what you do. You put your name on as the main event on something, you show up and you perform. Going into that Hell in A Cell match, I was hurt pretty much to the point where there was a couple of TV shows where they were having to help me up to the guerilla position, which is where we go to the ring. I was having to be helped to get to that spot, helped up the stairs because I couldn’t walk upstairs. And I would just sit there until my music would start, and when my music would start I would just suck it up and try to go out and make it look like nothing was wrong. When I was done with Hell in A Cell, we were supposed to go to Europe and Jim Ross came to me and said, ‘You’re off Europe.’ And I went to Vince to complain to say, ‘No, I’m fine, I’m going to Europe,’ and he just said, ‘No, you’re not going and I’m not arguing with you about it, you’re not going. You’re taking that off and you’re going to take a month of TV because obviously you won’t say its enough so I’m saying it’s enough.’ Again, I’m no tougher than anybody else, I just believe its one of those things-you keep going.”

UPBEAT It used to be that if they wanted to show that someone was a tough guy, they put him up against Mick Foley. These days, they put him against you. Do you take a certain amount of pride in that?

Triple H “When I was a kid growing up, and I shouldn’t say that because that’s the worst insult you can say in the business-‘when I was a kid I used to watch you,’ but when I was a kid, I looked up to (Ric) Flair, and as I got older I looked up to Flair because I felt like Ric Flair had great matches with everybody-it didn’t matter who it was, from the big guys to the little guys to the scientific guys, to the brawlers, he did it with all of them, and he made them all better. And that was always my goal in this business, to be in that vein, to be the guy that could go out there and streetfight with Cactus Jack, to be the guy that could go out there and go an hour with Rock, to wrestling matches with Benoit, to flying matches (not necessarily on my part, I’m more of a ground soldier) but to have the matches with high fliers such as Jericho or guys like that. I love to be able to have that versatility and it’s more fun for me because I love the challenge of being able to work with all these different guys. There was talk this year about me wrestling somebody at Wrestlemania from outside of our business and when that talk came up they asked me if I would be interested, and I was like, yeah, I love the challenges, that’s like working with the proverbial broomstick, right? So I love that challenge. If you go out there and rock and roll the crowd with somebody who doesn’t even know what they’re doing, what better could there be?”

UPBEAT How important were your earlier incarnations-the Blue Blood gimmick, for example-to your career as a whole?

Triple H “Everything you do is important in a way. I wouldn’t be where I was today if it wasn’t for everything I’ve done before today. When I was doing the Blue Blood character, the character was limiting to me but it was good. I enjoyed doing it, it was a lot of fun, I like what I’m doing now because it’s more myself. Not that long ago I saw a picture of myself. I was at my parents’ and I saw a picture of myself from then, and here I was this guy with my hair growing out, it was wet, it was down. I had my right fist taped and it was like, god, I went right back to what I was originally doing-I went full circle on the deal and I think that’s just me. Now what you see is just me. Obviously a larger-than-life version of me but it’s me. It’s what I feel inside of me is right and that’s great, but I wouldn’t have changed any of those other characters. I enjoyed doing the snob deal and after that it was DX. All that stuff was just a transformation for me of coming out of a character I’d played for a long time and slowly trying to build that back to where it was myself.”

UPBEAT There are plenty of wrestlers out there who are expanding out to acting, to writing books, that sort of thing. Are you interested in doing any of that?

Triple H “Well, I love the wrestling business, and if the opportunities arise I’m more than happy to do them. I don’t necessarily want it to take away from my wrestling, and I love this business-in one way, shape or form I’ll always be involved in this business. Now, do I want to get involved in acting and the movies and things like that? Sure, because there’s a certain point in time where physically I can’t continue to do what I do forever, and I’m well aware of that. I do not want to be the guy that-and I don’t want to mention names-but I don’t want to be the guy that just keeps going and he’s in his 50s and people are going, ‘Oh god, I remember when he used to be good.’ I don’t want to do that. I want to get out and I want to still be able to live my life, even if I’m behind the scenes doing things, there’s a still a creative standpoint that likes to be in that limelight to me and I would like to do other things outside of the business to satisfy that. So movies or other things-I would love to. But you know for some people they go, ‘I want to make movies and I want to do this and that’ and they won’t be happy until they do. I’m not necessarily that way. If that never works out, okay, I’ve got a hell of a job, I’m living my dream job right now, you know what I mean. And if those things don’t work out, that’s cool with me because I love what I do so it’s just not a big deal.”

UPBEAT: What do you think it is about the WWF that has allowed it to stay dominant over competitors like WCW and ECW?

Triple H “We’ve been more passionate about what we do. I think the one thing about World Wrestling Federation-this is not to knock anybody-ECW, they had a lot of passion. It’s hard when you’re working from underneath like that. It’s a struggle and I commend their effort on it but they made some bad business decisions or whatever and it didn’t work out. As far as the WCW goes, I think they lost their passion for the business. I think as a company, most of their people were just corporate people working for Turner that were pushed down to the wrestling thing and I think a lot of them were just 9-to-5ers that thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to do this wrestling crap, I’d rather be doing some other thing in the company but I got stuck down here doing this.” And I think you’ve got a lot of the wrestlers that were given these paychecks-they got their money and it was guaranteed, and they got the attitude of, ‘Well, why should I work harder? I don’t make any more money if I work harder, and I’m already getting my money so why should I do anything else?’ I think some of that comes with the agents, the performers as far as attitudes of that kind in the wrestling business. If you go over to our TV studio, I guarantee you any day at 4 a.m. somebody is over there working on a package for something. And they’re incredible because they want it to be incredible because those people put as much pride and passion into what they do as the guys that are in the ring putting their lives on the line to entertain people. Our PR people are the same way, they go the extra mile. Our entire company is that way, it’s all based on people that love the wrestling business and want to be involved in it because they’re passionate about what they do, they care. And that’s the biggest thing. I think we care, so we care to put out a great product, we care to entertain you better than anybody else and we care to make sure that every aspect of our show is as good as we can. Yeah, we make mistakes. Yeah, sometimes the storyline isn’t where it should be. But we work to change it and we’re always striving to get the best product we can because everybody in our company, from the lowest guy on the totem pole to the top guy on the totem pole, which is Vince McMahon-everybody shares that passion about our business. That’s why we’re number one and I believe that’s why we’ll continue to be successful as other people fall.”