A thread in which Dylan compares various wrestlers to HHH

[JerryvonKramer]

Dylan - would it be fair to say that you think the general quality of wrestlers declined sharply from the 80s and early 90s into the late 90s and early 00s?

[Mad Dog]

I've never really enjoyed any matches with the Harris Brothers. But they've always struck me as competent workers that know their strengths and weaknesses in the ring. If I were running a promotion and needed a mid-card tag team act, I would probably hire them with little hesitation.

[Dylan Waco]

Dylan - would it be fair to say that you think the general quality of wrestlers declined sharply from the 80s and early 90s into the late 90s and early 00s?

I think the general quality of promos plummeted during that period.

 

In ring? Honestly I'd have to think about it, but there are plenty of guys from the last fifteen years that I have liked a lot. Japan certainly has gotten massively worse since then.

[Matt D]

For WWF, to me, it's tricky, because why yes, you get the IYHs in the mid 90s, you also lose the Boston Garden/MSG/Copps/etc. spot shows getting taped and THAT is where so many of the guys really get a chance to shine.

 

On the other hand now we get so many fancam house shows.

[rzombie1988]

Based on their USWA work, I like the Harris Brothers. They were that staple tough guy tag team that you need and they were good foes for the Moondogs.

[Marty]

Fun thread.

 

To contribute, I skimmed through every WrestleMania card and for every Mania, I picked one worker that I thought was at least comparable to HHH on some level. Tried to also pick ones that were unconventional and was able to get a list of workers that haven't been picked either. So they are as follows:

 

Big John Studd

Hercules

Junkyard Dog

Bad News Brown

Warlord

Jim Neidhart

Brian Knobbs

Jerry Sags

Brutus Beefcake

Adam Bomb/Wrath

Yokozuna

Ahmed Johnson

Rikishi

Ken Shamrock

Hardcore Holly

The Godfather

Test

Kane

Charlie Haas

D-Von Dudley

Shelton Benjamin

Rob Van Dam

Mr. Kennedy/Anderson

John Morrison

Kofi Kingston

Jack Swagger

Ezekiel Jackson

 

I await Dylan's reply.

[JerryvonKramer]

Just seems so odd to me to see the likes of Barbarian rated over HHH.

 

I think of stuff like Barb vs. Ron Simmons at Halloween Havoc 92, the one time he was *sort of* given a main event spot on a major PPV.

 

I mean the top 10 moments of HHH career are surely going to spank the top 10 moments of Barb's right? What's the best ever Barb match?

 

This one just stood out as weird to me.

[Dylan Waco]

The top ten moments of HHH's career will top the top ten of a lot of people. When you play politics and fuck the bosses daughter that's how things work out.

 

There are people I rate above HHH, who I dont' expect others to agree with. Barbarian is one of them, but if you asked me to point to qualities I think that make a wrestler good he has more of them than HHH

[Loss]

Just seems so odd to me to see the likes of Barbarian rated over HHH.

 

I think of stuff like Barb vs. Ron Simmons at Halloween Havoc 92, the one time he was *sort of* given a main event spot on a major PPV.

 

I mean the top 10 moments of HHH career are surely going to spank the top 10 moments of Barb's right? What's the best ever Barb match?

 

This one just stood out as weird to me.

The Boss Man matches are really good, especially the one at Royal Rumble '91. The Eddy match from Nitro in June of '96 is a really fun spotfest. I don't think he's better than HHH, but he's more fun to watch, and probably would have been better with equal opportunity.

[Jingus]

How much weight should we put on coulda-shoulda-woulda speculations about how someone might have performed in circumstances which never happened? There's a lot of "Triple H got opportunities that other guys never did" points here. And while that's true, we really can't accurately predict exactly how another guy would've done in that spot.

 

Another thing occurred to me: Trips never really had to work outside of the Big TV American Wrestling model. He barely had to ever work the indies, because WCW signed him just two years into his career. He only worked there for one year, and then jumped to the WWF and has remained there ever since. He's essentially wrestled exclusively in one promotion for the vast majority of his adult life. How might his career or performance style have been affected if he'd spent some significant time on the indies or in foreign territories?

[NintendoLogic]

I don't see how Nash is fundamentally incompetent.

 

Neither guy is a good worker. If you want to say HHH is better I wouldn't argue to hard, though I don't think there is a massive gap between the two.

I don't know that Nash has shown competence at anything other than defrauding money marks.

 

Again, the biggest problem I have with HHH is that his reach so frequently exceeds his grasp. He's a good promo, but not when he's droning on for 20 minutes. He's a good worker, but not in the masturbatory epics he's so fond of. As strange as it may seem, I think the closest analogue is Vince Russo. There's good stuff there, but he needs an editor.

[blueminister]

I relate him to russo in that his entire rep is based on being around during the austin/rock/foley ascendance and glomming onto what was really their success.

[Matt D]

Barbarian is a no-brainer guy to me, when it comes to being better than HHH. He ate offense better. His offense looked way better. He was willing to bump huge and make guys look really good.

 

The problem with Hunter having all these opportunities is that they allow for a sort of excess. He'd probably have been a better wrestler with a better body of work if he HADN'T had the opportunities.

[anarchistxx]

I find it hard to rate Triple-H; it's difficult to have any kind of objectivity either way about his ring or promo work because of all the backstage stuff and arguments that have been taking place for over ten years.

 

One thing I do know is that when I watched as an 11 year old kid in 2000/2001 he didn't seem out of place up there with Austin/Rock/Taker etc, and that Austin/HHH 2/3 falls match was my favourite match before I started going on internet forums and getting exposed to other promotions and styles. I thought it was the coolest, most epic match I'd ever seen. So as someone watching objectively at that age I definitely perceived him as an ace guy, I loved his promos and enjoyed his matches. In that way I can totally buy how he is perceived by casual fans as an all time great, especially since he's been promoted as such and put in that position for years now.

 

It's hard to ignore the years of terrible matches (even if he has his fair share of good work as well). I get the feeling if I'd watched Raw with any regularity since 2003 I'd be a lot harder on him, I've not had to suffer him shoved down my throat and have avoided most of the long promos and matches.

 

Still, I have no problem saying he's not in a top hundred of all time (maybe not even three hundred), even if I think arguing that the likes of Hercules, Barbarian and D'Von Dudley are better is pretty ridiculous. Sure, they've not been in such strong positions to have good matches and angles, but there is a reason for that. I refuse to believe HHH's rise is purely down to him playing politics and the company he kept. Justin Credible didn't exactly get pushed to the moon because of his Kliq connections, and Trips was extremely over in 1998-2000, and not purely because of the way he was pushed, I think the crowd genuinely dug his act. Even if his long run on top from 2002 onwards can be put down to his connections, I think its a little unfair to suggest his initial push was nothing to do with his own merit. He was a solid worker and a solid promo, coming in at a time (1996) when WWF was somewhat short of both. Plus he always seemed loyal. Combined with his size, I think it's a no brainer that he'd have got a push around that period,

[Dooley]

Trips was extremely over in 1998-2000

He was over in 98 and '00. '99 not so much. That was the FIRST HHH giant push where he got nothing but crickets until the end of the year when they paired him up with Steph and early 2000 where Foley damn near killed himself to get Trips over.

[Victator]

I really love his matches with Austin at No Mercy 99 and The Six Pack Challenge the month before. If he is not trying to be the man I think he is good. I think he is a pretty good promo when he is not trying to make himself seem legit.

[Coffey]

This might be one of the most, if not THE most ridiculous threads that I have ever seen. I feel like I've stumbled across a troll forum. I have been laughing pretty hard though, which I needed, so carry-on.

[Jingus]

This might be one of the most, if not THE most ridiculous threads that I have ever seen.

How so? There's various ones I don't agree with (Rick Steiner, Balls Mahoney, Billy Gunn, etc) but the only one that seems outright laughable is putting Nash on the same level with Trips. HHH has been in at least a few matches that I'd call downright great, and countless more which were at least perfectly watchable; and has had a solid (though not spectacular) track record as a reasonably consistent draw. Nash has repeatedly proven to be a money-losing wonder who actively drives away the fans when he's on top, somehow manages to do fewer clean jobs than even Trips does, and I can pretty much count his good matches on my fingers. Other than that, Dylan's done a good job of at least explaining his reasoning behind his opinions.

[Chess Knight]

Trip being good when not overly trying tends to be the unviersal opinion around people who don't like the guy. I like him myself, but I can totally see where that's spawned from. Check any 2003 Title match where H is basically a tenth-rate Ric Flair impersonator, and the match usually stinks. Then look at him just actually like a dick without trying to put on a "clinic" or w/e in the SummerSam 04 match v Eugene; that ruled.

[Jingus]

Actually, I thought the Eugene program was one of his very worst examples of HHH's real-life dickishness. Dinsmore got amazingly over with that gimmick in an incredibly short amount of time, but he was never quite the same again once Trips quickly stepped in to leech his heat away by beating the shit out of the poor retarded kid over and over again. Hunter's amazingly one-sided feuds are a staple of his career (Jericho, Booker, Kane, Flair, RVD, etc) but there was absolutely no reason for him to step way down into the undercard just to kill off Eugene's popularity before it ever properly got started. Especially since it was promptly forgotten by the very next night when Trips got the title back and then spent the next year in-fighting with various members of his own stable.

[anarchistxx]

This might be one of the most, if not THE most ridiculous threads that I have ever seen. I feel like I've stumbled across a troll forum. I have been laughing pretty hard though, which I needed, so carry-on.

You've clearly not read the DVDVR thread where people try to argue, with all seriousness, that Rosey of Three Minute Warning fame is a better worker than Shawn Michaels.

 

On the subject of the Eugene feud I remember thinking it was pretty good at the time. It capitalised on Eugene getting very over very quickly and certainky wasn't all one sided, Eugene got his revenge by costing Trips the world title one time leading up to the well built match at Summerslam. The bout itself was nothing too special, pretty simple and effective for the most part though, and I'm not sure I buy that Eugene should have won it, since he was never going to be at the top as any more than a short lived novelty act. Cutting Orton's push off a month in was the bigger sin around that time, no reason at all that they couldn't have given Randy a longer time with the belt even if they felt he was initially bombing. The Orton victory over Benoit was superbly done and an excellent match (with a clean finish for once).

[El-P]

Pretty funny thread. Some claims are totally outrageous (and I'm a HHH hater), but some really good points are made too. Also, I'm sick of the Raven bashing at this point, which is getting pretty ridiculous and totally overblown.

I can't even fathom the idea of having to go through the entire last decade of WWE TV with HHH on top. A nightmare of dullness on every front.

[MJH]

The biggest problem I have with HHH is that his reach so frequently exceeds his grasp. He's a good promo, but not when he's droning on for 20 minutes. He's a good worker, but not in the masturbatory epics he's so fond of. As strange as it may seem, I think the closest analogue is Vince Russo. There's good stuff there, but he needs an editor.

This is pretty on the money.

 

I quite like HHH in general, or there's enough stuff of his I like that, whilst I'd never want to watch hours of his stuff on end or anything, I don't have any kind of visceral reaction against the guy.

[Kronos]

Great discussion. But then what are the very good (or great?) Haitch matches where he's not being massively put over by his partner? (like the Foley 2000 matches, which are as much Mick as anything) Someone mentioned Eugene at Summerslam 04. The Iron Man in 2000.

 

What else is worth tracking down or re-watching? It should just about all be on YT or DM.

[Matt D]

Nothing makes me discount someone's statement (and really, someone in general) than coming into a note and saying "Some pretty funny stuff here" or "this is ridiculous" without backing things up.

 

Dylan's been backing up everything he's said. We've all made our points, pro and con towards HHH.And yeah, if someone can make the argument for Rosey over Michaels, I'll listen to it and give that person way more attention and respect for making a cohesive argument than someone just dismissing it for being ridiculous or against some obvious objective truth.

 

That said, I think Levy vs Hunter is a kind of interesting argument since both guys are obviously big fans of wrestling and tried to emulate what came before.