It's all about the Game and how you play it but who played it the best? These are the 10 best rivals of Triple H's career.
00:00 - Start
01:05 - 10
02:15 - 9
03:14 - 8
04:11 - 7
05:12 - 6
06:14 - 5
07:26 - 4
08:29 - 3
09:25 - 2
10:44 - 1
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00:00 - Start
01:05 - 10
02:15 - 9
03:14 - 8
04:11 - 7
05:12 - 6
06:14 - 5
07:26 - 4
08:29 - 3
09:25 - 2
10:44 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
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SportsTranscript
00:00 It's all about the game and how you play it.
00:03 It's all about control and if you can take it all about your debt and if you can pay
00:08 it it's all about the game and who's going to have a good feud with it.
00:12 That's a game.
00:13 Not everyone that played was able to win.
00:15 Not every Triple H rivalry was a banger.
00:17 But when Triple H was on his game, he was able to create some of the most memorable
00:22 moments matches and rivalries in WWE history and the latter of which is what we will be
00:27 talking about today.
00:29 Triple H and everyone who ever sat down to play a great game with him.
00:33 It has always been a risk to go into an extended feud with Big Trips given his affinity for
00:37 not always doing what was best for business at the time.
00:40 So to Booker T I say sorry, you will not be featured here today.
00:44 But to those who do, congratulations, you've won the game of life.
00:47 I'm Tempest Haling from PartsFUNknown and these are the 10 greatest rivals of Triple
00:50 H's career.
00:51 But before we get on with this list make sure you like, subscribe and enable notifications
00:55 to always on so you never miss another list just like it and make sure you check out the
00:59 ever growing list of superstars who we have covered in our greatest rivals sub series
01:04 of lists.
01:05 Number 10, Randy Orton.
01:07 Triple H more or less had a monopoly over the World Heavyweight Championship from 2002
01:11 to 2005 and one of the poor unfortunate souls to feel the wrath of his tyranny was young
01:16 protege Randy Orton.
01:17 The 2004 chapter of the Triple H Randy Orton story had all the makings of a solid feud.
01:22 Not with all the evolution prelude and whatnot, but unfortunately it was marred by Orton not
01:27 being ready for the main event spot and not quite connecting as the top babyface the way
01:31 that those at Titan Towers had hoped.
01:33 But still the two are intrinsically linked and found their way back to one another a
01:37 few years later with Orton and Trips battling over the WWE Championship countless times
01:41 between 2007 and 2009.
01:44 Orton doing everything in his power to rid the WWE of the McMahon family in the lead
01:48 up to WrestleMania 25, a babyface act in hindsight, was a great anchor for the final leg of this
01:53 feud with Triple H that saw Orton recapture the title and finally get revenge for his
01:58 evolution betrayal.
01:59 But the problem with all this is that they kind of had trouble having their matches be,
02:04 well, good.
02:05 Their last man standing match at No Mercy 2007 is the only one I've ever wanted to
02:09 go back and rewatch and that low batting average puts Orton down here at number 10.
02:15 Number 9, Mr. McMahon.
02:16 Now I certainly am not going to talk about work rate keeping Randy Orton low and then
02:20 excuse Vince McMahon and his wobbly legged wrestling, but that's not really what anyone's
02:24 looking for out of a rivalry with Mr. McMahon now is it?
02:27 Rather the McMahon-Helmsley rivalry was much more significant than simply a good or bad
02:32 wrestling match as it gave way to the McMahon-Helmsley regime that dominated WWE on and off camera
02:37 from that point onward.
02:39 Triple H's beef with Mr. McMahon led to Huntor causing great aggravation on Stephanie's
02:43 wedding night, revealing that Steph had actually already been married to, guess who, Triple
02:48 H. Or so we thought.
02:50 In fact, there was no aggravation to be had for Steph who revealed she was in on the whole
02:54 thing turning on Vince during his match with her new husband at Armageddon 99.
02:58 From there the rest is history between Trips and Steph while the Game and the Senior McMahon
03:02 spent the following decade as enemies and as a united family with sprinkles of DX shenanigans
03:07 thrown in from time to time.
03:09 Also Vince beat Triple H for the WWE Championship.
03:11 What a f***ing footnote that one is, my god.
03:14 Number 8, Kurt Angle.
03:16 If this story had been allowed to play out as it was intended, there is no doubt in my
03:20 mind their rivalry would be right near the top of this list.
03:23 As it stands, the television produced by the Angle, Stephanie and Triple H love triangle
03:28 was two-thirds of one of the best storylines that WWE ever produced.
03:32 Unfortunately we just never got to see the last third.
03:35 Everyone played their parts to perfection, Angle the sleazy friend just waiting for his
03:39 chance to get the girl, Stephanie the naive partner and Triple H the jealous egomaniac.
03:45 Triple H may have played that role a little too well in the end, getting the story nixed
03:49 by saying it was unrealistic that Stephanie would leave him for Kurt.
03:52 Allow me to count the lines on my brain as my eyes roll all the way back in my skull.
03:56 2000 was the best year of Triple H's career and you will hear more about that in a little
04:00 bit but his feud with Angle was filled with great matches, great segments and the kind
04:05 of moments that kept you wanting to tune into the next show with WWE at the highest point
04:09 in its attention to continuity.
04:11 Number 7, Daniel Bryan.
04:13 The WWE fans were going to force this rivalry into greatness if they had to hijack every
04:17 show to do it.
04:18 How is it possible that when Triple H hit the pedigree on Daniel Bryan to screw him
04:22 out of the WWE Championship at Summerslam 2013, the plan wasn't to ride that wave to
04:28 WrestleMania?
04:29 I have no clue.
04:30 Through some unforeseen CM Punk related circumstances and the fans' persistence, Bryan and Triple
04:35 H did indeed have a WrestleMania feud for the ages.
04:38 Whether it be the Seattle crowd seizing control of the title unification ceremony in December,
04:43 or Pittsburgh turning on the Royal Rumble in January, or finally the famous Occupy Raw
04:48 moment, there was a very real, very authentic feeling to the Daniel Bryan vs. The Authority
04:52 rivalry that most wrestling stories fail to capture.
04:56 All of that with their one and only match together being arguably the best WrestleMania
05:00 opening match of all time.
05:02 Check out Adam's list of the 10 best Mania Openers to find out the other 9, and you have
05:06 one of the best pieces of business Triple H has ever been part of, whether he wanted
05:11 to be or not.
05:12 Number 6, The Undertaker.
05:14 What's better than one classic Mania match?
05:16 Three classic Mania matches.
05:18 Sure the first one is a little wacky, but WWE likes to forget about that one anyway.
05:22 The real story here is what came at the back half of the legendary WrestleMania streak
05:26 of Fester the Spectre Protector.
05:28 DX's quest to end Taker's streak is probably what most people think of first when it comes
05:32 to the streak, starting with Shawn's unbreakable desire to become the One in 16-1 and then
05:37 17-1, before Triple H picked up where he left off.
05:40 A lot of the early goings of the build to WrestleMania 27 were very surface level, Triple
05:45 H saying that he and Taker were the last two of their generations and such, but when Shawn
05:49 re-entered the feud, and the story morphed into one about Triple H's insecurities that
05:53 he wasn't good enough to do what Shawn couldn't, it became one of the most emotionally satisfying
05:58 rivalries of both WrestleMania 27 and 28.
06:02 Add in the fact that both of those Mania matches were by far the best matches of both shows,
06:06 and you have a major highlight of both men's careers, and then they never wrestled again.
06:12 Never again!
06:14 Number 5, Batista.
06:16 WWE may as well have used Will-O-Wisp on Batista because this was one of the best slow burn
06:20 stories they ever created.
06:22 Few WWE stories have ever given their audience a better reason to stay tuned every single
06:27 week than this one.
06:28 Each and every week, fans watched to see if that would finally be the week that Batista
06:31 would have had enough of Triple H's orders, building to the perfect crescendo after Triple
06:36 H chose not to save Batista in the Elimination Chamber, after Batista won the Royal Rumble,
06:41 after Batista overheard Triple H talking mad s*** backstage with one of the great raw moments
06:46 of all time, with Mr. Hinks himself giving his Evolution running mates the big thumbs
06:51 down and putting Trips through a table and announcing his intention to wrestle him at
06:55 WrestleMania 21.
06:56 Granted, Triple H and Batista don't have the highest batting average of great matches
07:00 together, their matches at WrestleMania 21 at Backlash '05 and WrestleMania 35 top
07:05 out at Just Fine, but the exception to that rule was their Hell in a Cell match at Vengeance
07:10 2005.
07:11 Batista stepping into Triple H's dominion and walking out victorious, one of the best
07:16 Hell in a Cell matches ever, one of Triple H's best matches, one of Batista's best
07:20 matches, and one of the most satisfying conclusions to a story in WWE history.
07:26 4.
07:27 Shawn Michaels Triple H and Shawn Michaels have had a lot
07:29 of matches against one another.
07:31 A lot.
07:32 They feuded on and off for two years during the early 2000s, and while some of their matches
07:37 were fantastic, such as their Unsanctioned match at SummerSlam 2002 and their draw on
07:41 the final Raw of 2003, and some of their matches were incredibly self-indulgent, such as their
07:46 Three Stages of Hell match at Armageddon '02, or their Hell in a Cell match at Bad Blood
07:51 '04, it is absolutely undeniable that there is no one in WWE history more closely associated
07:57 with Triple H inside the ring than Shawn Michaels.
08:00 The checkered past tying them together because of their time in DX made their most heated
08:04 rivalries that much more personal, and it made it all the more gratifying when they
08:08 finally reunited in 2006.
08:11 What you or I may think of all the DX reunions aside, that first pop when they came together
08:16 to stop Dolph and his Zigglers is explosive.
08:19 They may not have been the other's best opponent, they may not have been the other's best tag
08:22 team partner, but there have been few to have a bigger impact on the other's career than
08:26 Shawn Michaels and Triple H.
08:28 3.
08:30 Steve Austin Imagine the world in which the phenomenal
08:33 rivalry between Steve Austin and Triple H actually went to the driver and not the accomplice.
08:38 Imagine the world in which this rivalry was instead reserved for the man who did it for
08:42 the Rock, Rikishi.
08:44 One can hardly imagine such a world, it boggles the mind.
08:47 In this world in which we live however, Triple H took credit for the hit on Steve Austin,
08:52 igniting a rivalry in the lead up to WrestleMania X-7 that included maybe the very best match
08:57 that the game ever had at No Way Out 2001.
09:01 Once Stone Cold returned from his neck operation, this rivalry was Attitude Era wackiness at
09:06 its peak.
09:07 Austin dropping Triple H from a forklift was an utterly insane way to close out Survivor
09:11 Series and things just wouldn't end until Triple H won their three stages of Hell match.
09:16 Still not sure why that decision was made, but it did put a cap on one of the Attitude
09:19 Era's greatest ever rivalries, culminating the best run of Triple H's career.
09:25 2.
09:26 The Rock WWE choosing not to main event WrestleMania
09:29 with Triple H vs The Rock will forever drive me to my wits end.
09:33 That annoying detail aside, this was really where Triple H's 2000 was solidified as the
09:38 year he came into his own as a main event talent.
09:41 With Steve Austin out of action, there was a gaping hole at the top of WWE's roster.
09:45 With The Rock turning babyface to make up for it, who else would play opposite to The
09:49 Rock than Triple H?
09:51 They had the match they should have had at WrestleMania 2000 at Backlash a month later
09:55 before trading the belt throughout the spring and summer.
09:57 Triple H was on fire at the time, and it is no coincidence that much of this list comes
10:02 from this time period.
10:03 His matches were at their best thanks to a stacked midcard, and this is when WWE had
10:07 its best ever main event scene, highlighted most of all by Austin and Rock.
10:12 Yeah, Triple H would still do whatever he could to make himself look as good as possible,
10:16 but The Rock played the part of the rival better than almost anyone.
10:20 He could talk shit to Triple H on the mic like few others were ever allowed to do, and
10:24 he could back it up in the ring.
10:25 That doesn't even take into account their excellent work over the Intercontinental Championship
10:29 when they were both on the come up either.
10:31 Whether it be their ladder match at SummerSlam '98 or their classic at Backlash 2000, their
10:36 chemistry was always off the charts with The Rock bringing the best out of Triple H like
10:40 no one else could.
10:42 Well, almost no one.
10:44 Number 1, Mick Foley In terms of the most important rivalries
10:48 in the career of Triple H, no one has made more of an impact than Mick Foley Bang Bang.
10:53 When Triple H needed to get his groove back after the curtain call, the person at the
10:57 heart of each of his key moments was the glue that held the Attitude Era together, Cactus
11:02 Dude Mick Mankind Foley Love Jack.
11:04 When Triple H won the King of the Ring in 1997, he did it by beating Mankind.
11:09 When Triple H tore the house down in Madison Square Garden on Raw, he did it by battling
11:13 the returning Cactus Jack.
11:15 And when Triple H needed to cement his place among the main event scene at the beginning
11:19 of 2000, he did it by having the best feud of his career, defending the WWF Championship
11:24 against Cactus Jack in two ultra-memorable matches, first in a street fight at the Royal
11:29 Rumble, once again inside MSG, and again inside Hell in a Cell at No Way Out.
11:34 The street fight is many people's favorite Triple H match of all time, mine included,
11:38 because of just how much it did for Triple H's career.
11:41 Having that definitive title defense in an all-time classic match, in a brutally violent
11:46 hardcore match, proved to the audience that the game was not one to be played by the faint
11:50 of heart.
11:51 You'd be better off playing one of the dozen games I've sneakily worked into this list.
11:55 These lists have always been meant to highlight the most meaningful rivalries in the careers
11:59 of their subjects, and in this case, there is no doubt that that distinction falls to
12:03 Mrs. Foley's baby boy.
12:05 And that's our list!
12:06 Make sure, of course, that you like this video, subscribe, and enable notifications to always
12:09 on so you never miss a fun list just like it, and make sure you check out the latest
12:13 edition of Survival Series.
12:16 We are going to be having our contestants name every single WWE 24/7 champion.
12:25 Happy April Fool's Day, motherfuckers.