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The 7 - Pro Wrestling - Blake Norton puts Triple H in his place
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Lew Zealand
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#1 Posted on 11.8.02 2027.39
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2029.02
http://www.411wrestling.com/columns/article.php?columns_id=1251

[ EDIT: Please don't crosspost entire articles when just a link would suffice - CRZ ]



(edited by CRZ on 11.8.02 2120)
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BigDaddyLoco
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#2 Posted on 11.8.02 2055.59
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2059.01
Triple H is currently this decades Lex Luger, with more pull of course. Hunter had his run as a pretty good worker, and I agree that workrate appears to be gone now. I don't ever think he will regain that form.

I can see how the contiuned push of the man is hurting business as well. Never was it so clear as when H interupted Jericho's interview, only to have J.R. call him the the REAL franchise player . That's a bold statement to be making about a guy that can't stay healthy. The Undertaker, who is older, appears to have more gas in the tank than Hunter. Not only that but Taker can still work or keep up and put out a good match with a younger worker. Triple H is even struggling to do that.

The return of HBK seems to be a play by Hunter to garner some heat, any heat. The only problem is this feud makes no sense. An HBK/Nash feud would probably be a better show because there is a history of freindship and betrayal. Here there is nothing. Two old friends that were both heels fighting about something personal or that's what it it seems like thus far. They spar back in forth with *insider* comments while the crowd goes dead and remote controls start clicking worldwide.

HBK's long awaited return should be a trump card for the WWE. His return to the ring should be built up. It's been 4 years since we've seen the man in action. It's hard to jump right back into storylines and have anyone care, especially when we the fans are told to forget what happened last week.

HBK should be getting in the ring with The Rock. Someone who can make him look good, while drawing a *big time* buy rate. The match could be dripping with so much heat that many people might be able to look past HBK's short comings in the ring. If HBK's ego is to big for the Rock then get in there with Angle, a man that will make you look like a million bucks.

Going in the ring with Triple H is only going to spell disastor. Triple H is in no shape now to cover for HBK's weak spots. What if HBK realizes this halfway through so he tries to turn it up only to hurt himself again. I will be surprised if this match can even earn ***, and that's just sad.

On the other hand I think Triple H is just the tip of the iceberg when it come to the WWE's problems. The buck stops with Vince it always has. Vince has either lost a step, or he has decided to listen to the wrong people for advice. There is no reason for cards to be this bad or even this average week after week. Not with the in ring talent Vince now has. While Triple H is the most visable problem with the business, the real problems are starting and ending in Vince's office.

(edited by BigDaddyLoco on 11.8.02 2202)
Saruman
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#3 Posted on 11.8.02 2146.20
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2147.26
Taker can still be carried to watchable matches by good workers, cos, you know, he occasionally (I never thought I'd say this) sells when he's motivated (re: RvD and Hardy Ladder matches). HHH used to sell, but, crikey, his psychology is all messed up these days, you know, when he's healthy enough to get into the ring. He's just back to being boring old hunter again. But, hey, at least he doesn't always USE THE KNEE~! now.

btw, H's megaJesusalmightyGodwe'llpushhimtothemoonnomatterwhat push started well before he started dating stephy. That didn't happen till, I think, right before the original leg injury. I guess he figured he'd get hurt sometime, might as well have a backup plan.

He obviously got pushed initially cos of the hair. On the other hand, he's even losing that lately. Hasn't talked to Nash enough.
VK Wallstreet
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#4 Posted on 11.8.02 2230.57
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2236.24
Wow, I just read that article on 411 and was going to start a thread about it here under the title "Revisionist wrestling history," but it seems it already exists. However, everybody seems to be taking the opposite tack I was going to take.

That column is ridiculous. Norton, to whose stupid e-mail newsletter full of constant factual inaccuracies I used to subscribe, says, "not long into his WWE tenure, Triple-H developed a reputation among 'smart' fans of being over-rated." Not that it matters what "smart" fans think of anything, but this just isn't true. Hunter's Internet rep was always as a quality worker who always gave his all and never gave a fair shake. This was particularly true during his post-MSG burial. It was only after he started nailing Steph that the backlash began. Suddenly, he was overrated, overpushed, only got there because of who his girlfriend was -- a kinda shocking assertion considering all the dues he had to pay to get to the top.

Norton then goes into rapid revisionist mode, pretending Hunter was never any good. Listen, he's not wowing me at the moment, either, but when he was good, he was pretty fucking good. Norton says "Hunter seemed profoundly out of
place" next to Michaels in DX, which just isn't true. He wasn't a blueblood anymore -- his gimmick had changed. Sometimes, people's gimmicks change. He fit in just fine. If he didn't, why was DX any good? Without him, there wouldn't have been any DX.

Hunter finally got to the main event via his relationship with Steph, Norton says. But listen -- by that time, he was already rapidly on his way. And the timing wasn't a coincidence, but not in the way Norton asserts. Think about it -- this is a McMahon we're talking about. Do you really think she would have gotten involved with someone who wasn't a top guy? That may sound pretty damned cynical, but I think the McMahon family's behavior is well-documented enough to know how they live their lives. When HHH turned heel, he was incredible. He was exciting to watch both in and out of the ring. His surprise title win was just the shakeup the boring main-event scene needed. And he earned it, no doubt about it. He was easily the best thing about the WWF at that time.

Complain all you want about Hunter's backstage shenanigans -- though I suspect that's probably pretty overblown. (I love the way Norton says, "Not surprisingly, the depressed locker-room morale has sunk to new lows as a result [of Hunter's get-in-gear speech]," as if he's been backstage for the past 10 years to know what the highs and lows have been like, and as if even if it's true, it's all about Hunter instead of the horrible creative and underwhelming house-show crowds.) Complain about how he is now. But do not take away from what he's done, because he did it the hard way, he learned his lessons, and he got there by being good and getting better. It's as simple as that. I'm not fond of revisionist history, and I'm not fond of crap like this.
HMD
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#5 Posted on 11.8.02 2309.15
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2309.18
I fall in the middle on this argument. But I refute the notion Trips was ever the best thing going. First of all, if Austin had not gotten put out with that bone spur injury in late 1999, Trips never would have sustained the push he did. Second, the Rock was fast becoming a household name, and watching him become a phenomenon before my eyes every week was a hell of a lot more fascinating to me. Imagine if Rock hadn’t gotten over as did, and Austin had gone out with the injury at the same time? Who would Triple H have had to play off of? No one, because there would have been no big star to keep the company afloat.
Give me a year of feuds with Angle, Rock, Jericho, Benoit, and Mick Foley in their primes and FRESH as characters (or if not damn motivated) and tell me I can’t get over. Sure he had awesome matches. But they weren’t better than Angle’s matches now. Why am I supposed to believe Triple H was solely responsible for the success of those matches? Angle has better matches with no-names than Triple H had two years ago with the best in the business. Let Booker T retire a legend, like the Undertaker, like Trips got to retire Foley, and then tell me he won’t get just as over.
Trips may have earned a chance, but he was lucky and manipulative to get it and lucky and manipulative to keep his spot. No one has been protected like Triple H since Hogan in his prime.
Shem the Penman
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#6 Posted on 11.8.02 2312.45
Reposted on: 11.8.09 2314.48
Word. Grousing about Triple H's current spot on the roster in light of the work he's done since he came back is one thing. But claiming he was never any good, and never deserved to be pushed in the first place, is simply not supported by the facts.
Phantom
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#7 Posted on 12.8.02 0000.36
Reposted on: 12.8.09 0001.21
And of course, it's all HHH's fault. It's his fault that HBK became his friend, and HBK had no personal say in who he was friends with. It's HHH's fault that he's dating Stephanie, because she's a woman and has no free will of her own.

I'm sorry, but that article was just sad. The revisionist history he wrote was horrible. It's like doing a writeup now and referring to Billy Gunn as one of the most promising talents of 2001, or saying that ratings are down because Vince fails to acknowledge the fans' secret desire for the Big Bossman.
SmooveK
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#8 Posted on 12.8.02 0004.50
Reposted on: 12.8.09 0006.29

    Originally posted by Phantom
    It's like doing a writeup now and referring to Billy Gunn as one of the most promising talents of 2001, or saying that ratings are down because Vince fails to acknowledge the fans' secret desire for the Big Bossman.


Well, isn't that true?

-K(sing Amy)
skorpio17
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#9 Posted on 12.8.02 0952.39
Reposted on: 12.8.09 0957.46
OK, Norton went overboard with his column. Triple H was really good back in 2000, just look at the Royal Rumble.
Whether or not he "earned" his spot is open to debate.

I say that his push began because of his friendship with the champion Shawn Michaels, late 97. Once Shawn couldn't go, Triple H got put in the main events.

While not historically accurate, his column is on the button regarding Trips for 2002.
SKLOKAZOID
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#10 Posted on 12.8.02 1103.46
Reposted on: 12.8.09 1109.22

    Originally posted by Phantom
    And of course, it's all HHH's fault. It's his fault that HBK became his friend, and HBK had no personal say in who he was friends with. It's HHH's fault that he's dating Stephanie, because she's a woman and has no free will of her own.



HHH's association with Stephanie is something many attribute to something called "politics." HHH may not be able to fend off his insatiable attraction to Stephanie, which is probably based solely on power, but the fact of the matter is that he is using it to his advantage.

That doesn't neecssarily make HHH evil or anything. I mean, what's he supposed to do? NOT take advantage of it? He has an endless supply of promotion and job security by WWE now, and that's kind of a hard thing to get rid of.

That said, both Trips and Steph aren't using their power responsibly and it will ultimately hurt business if it keeps up at this rate.

I agree that the buck starts and stops with Vince McMahon. I find it hard to believe that he doesn't see what's going on right now, but I heard Vince Russo said that the last time he talked to McMahon, it seemed as if he was a different person from who he was in 1997.

I think that once Vince McMahon took his company public in 1999, his entire focus changed way too much into being money-oriented than product-oriented. His company is becoming too big and he doesn't seem to care about managing the television product as hands-on as he used to, which is why he's starting to hand it off to Stephanie and Shane now.

The problem is, though, that it doesn't appear as though Stephanie can handle the politics of running a wrestling company. She's too easily influenced by others that have something to gain.
The worst bit about it seems to be that they're outsourcing for writers now. Vince used to do all of that writing stuff while being influenced by his good buddies Pat Patterson & Gerald Brisco. At least Patterson & Brisco had the sense to realize that getting themselves over wouldn't have been what the fans wanted.
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