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That said, Triple H has evolved quite a bit over the years as he moved from one stage of his career to another, and the Triple H of today bears little resemblance to who he was when he debuted for the company in the Summer of 1995. There hasn't been much written or said about him at that stage, and I'd be willing to bet that at least half the people reading this have no idea what the name Triple H even means or what it stands for. To those people, I say...read on!
After spending about a year in WCW as a snobby rich Frenchman named Jean Paul Levesque, the man who would come to be known as Triple H jumped to the WWF, changed his name to Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and portrayed pretty much the same character he had in WCW, except that he was now from Greenwich, Connecticut instead of France. He came out wearing a fancy riding jacket and boots, bowed and curtsied, brought out beautiful models in evening gowns as his valets, and generally lived the rich life. He looked down on the commoners in the audience and sneered at his opponents, but backed it up with an undefeated streak that lasted from the Summer of 1995 and into 1996. He was even given a prominent spot at Wrestlemania 12, facing the returning Ultimate Warrior and losing to him in about 90 seconds.
Despite the squash loss, Hunter was still getting a strong push and was planned to win the King of the Ring tournament in 1996 and possibly get the Intercontinental Title afterwards, but those plans were dashed that May when he and his Clique buddies Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall committed a breach of kayfabe that the WWF was absolutely not willing to tolerate. Hunter was wrestling Hall (as Razon Ramon) and Shawn Michaels wrestled Nash (as Diesel) in Madison Square Garden, which would be Hall and Nash's last matches before moving on to WCW, but even though two of them were babyfaces and two were heels, all four men embraced in the ring at the end of the show and raised their arms to give Hall and Nash a happy sendoff.
It might have been a feel good moment for the four of them, but Vince McMahon was irate, and someone was going to catch hell for it. Hall and Nash were gone and couldn't be punished, Shawn was the WWF Champion and one of their few remaining established main eventers and went unpunished as well. That left Hunter as the only remaining target, so instead of winning King of the Ring, he lost in the first round of the tournament on Raw and was removed from the PPV entirely, then spent months doing jobs as punishment for what had happened.
Finally, he had done his time and the WWF was ready to get behind him again, and the first step was pushing him to the Intercontinental Title. This was accomplished by building heat between Hunter and Mr Perfect, who was not actively wrestling at the time but would come out and lead Hunter's women away from the ring because he knew Hunter could be a champion without the distractions. In the meantime, Perfect was also being presented as an advisor to Intercontinental Champion Marc Mero, and indeed his guidance led Mero to the title in the first place. Hunter finally challenged Perfect to meet him on an episode of Raw, but attacked him before the match and hurt him badly enough that he couldn't compete. Perfect asked Mero to take his place in the match and put the title on the line, then came out during the match and sneak attacked Mero, revealing the injury to be a ruse and helping Hunter, now revealed as Perfect's real protege, become Intercontinental Champion.
Perfect ran into contract issues with the WWF and was gone within weeks after Hunter's title win, but Hunter had a successful title reign nonetheless. He successfully defended against Mero and also former champion Goldust, and wound up in a feud with Goldust stemming from repeated interference by Hunter's new bodyguard Chyna, an imposing woman who had no problem attacking anyone in Hunter's way, man or woman, and on one memorable occasion grabbed Goldust's manager Marlena and viciously shook her around like a ragdoll. Hunter lost the Intercontinental Title to up and coming superstar, the "Blue Chipper" Rocky Maivia, on Thursday Raw Thursday and failed to reclaim the title in a PPV rematch, but the feud with Goldust continued as Hunter beat him at Wrestlemania 13.
With the Goldust feud done, Hunter went on to win the 1997 King of the Ring tournament, defeating Mankind in the finals and then cutting a scathing postmatch promo talking about how he had been held back for the last year and no longer would be. The win over Mankind in the finals was tainted by Chyna's interference, and they feuded throughout the Summer months and met in a cage match at Summerslam where Mankind, in a tribute to his childhood hero Jimmy Snuka, beat Hunter with an elbowdrop off the top of the cage. Mick Foley followed that up by facing Hunter one more time in a Falls Count Anywhere match on Monday Night Raw, but instead of coming out as Mankind, the match saw the WWF debut of Foley's Cactus Jack persona. Cactus won the match after piledriving Hunter through a table, ending their feud until it reignited in early 2000.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley was now over two years into his WWF career, and in late 1997 he joined up with Shawn Michaels, Chyna, and Rick Rude to form the original incarnation of Degeneration X, and suddenly the once-aloof Helmsley went from wearing the thigh-high boots and riding jacket to wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and went from quietly diparaging his opponents in pretentious language to cracking insider jokes and sexual entendres. Within weeks, the Hunter Hearst Helmsley we had known for years was gone, and in his place stood Triple H, Shawn's smartass sidekick who no longer went by his full name.
While the arrangement initially had him playing junior tag partner and henchman while standing at ringside for Shawn's matches, he soon won his second title in questionable fashion when WWF Commissioner Sgt Slaughter ordered Shawn, who was both the WWF Champion and European Champion, to defend the European Title against Triple H on an episode of Raw. Shawn and Hunter got one over on Slaughter by having Shawn go down like a bag of rocks at the slightest touch from Hunter, and then Hunter comedically ran the ropes back and forth seven or eight times before simply covering Shawn and winning the title in a scene eerily similar to the Fingerpoke of Doom that would come about a year later.
Triple H's main feud during his European Title run was against Owen Hart, who had returned and attacked Shawn shortly after the Montreal Incident that led to the end of Bret Hart's WWF career. Owen got one match with Shawn on Raw, then transitioned into a feud with Hunter while Shawn concentrated on defending the WWF Title against Steve Austin and the Undertaker. Hunter got Goldust, now a heel with an identity crisis, to impersonate him in a title defense against Owen on Raw, but Owen won the match and Slaughter ruled it a legal title win. Hunter regained the title a few weeks later when he goaded Owen, who had an injured ankle and was wearing a cast, into defending it against him on an episode of Raw, forcing Owen to submit with a modified anklelock.
Wrestlemania 14 became a major turning point in Triple H's career, as he used interference from Chyna to defeat Owen again and retain the European Title, then accompanied Shawn to ringside for his title defense against Steve Austin. Austin won the match and the title, and Shawn was forced into retirement after the match due to back injuries, leaving Hunter at a crossroads. He opened up Raw the next night by saying that Shawn had dropped the ball and was officially kicked out of DX, then he took control of the group himself and added the returning X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws the same night to form the "new" DX and begin his rise as a top singles star without being stuck in anyone's shadow.
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While it's become the popular thing for some internet fans to bash on Triple H for using his political power to keep himself at the top and hold others down, the truth is that it wasn't always wine and roses for the guy, and he had a lot of rough spots to get through to prove himself worthy of where he ended up. Even aside from doing a 90 second job to the Ultimate Warrior on Wrestlemania and his six month burial stemming from poor judgment, Hunter still spent years paying his dues before he got his first WWF Title in late 1999. He may be the most powerful wrestler in the world now, but it wasn't easy getting there, especially given that he had to stand out as a player in both the Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin/Rock generations.
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