Is Triple H in your top 100?

[Grimmas]

He's billed as an all-time great by the WWE. People point to a good run in 2000. He's had more opportunities to have big time matches than almost everyone.

 

Is he making it for you?

[NotJayTabb]

Nowhere near my top 100. He's been in some good matches, but he's probably #1 on a list of wrestlers who I don't want to watch wrestle. There are worse wrestlers, but none who will have matches of such a length that are so uninteresting. There's nothing about him that compels me to watch a match, and he's been responsible for some of my least favourite matches ever - I still have nightmares thinking about that wretched Last Man Standing bout from the 2004 Rumble.

[GOTNW]

Wouldn't make a top 500.

[Matt D]

His best stuff isn't even all that good, relatively.

[PhilTLL]

I'm not voting and haven't been seeking out a lot of new-to-me workers in the past year, and I could still name 100 better than HHH off the top of my head.

[WingedEagle]

Haven't thought about him but will. Gut is no but until I start writing down and then removing names I can't be sure.

 

By the way the thought of actually constructing a list is beyond daunting. Have had so much fun watching and thinking about the list but I have no clue when and how I'll start putting pen to paper.

[El McKell]

Ranking Triple H is really hard for me because it becomes about how much do I weight the bad stuff. Rating Hunter on his best work clearly puts him on my list and I'm not sure if that's unfair or not.

If I look at a guy like Buddy Rogers where I've seen less than 10 matches and I dunno if there are even more to see and he looks awesome and I feel like he should be on my list. Well if all I'd seen of Triple H was ten of his best performances he might look even better than Rogers, so I need to properly think about reconciling stuff like that.

Also there's stuff like the Booker T WrestleMania match, where it's terrible because you think about the angle and how the finish was such a terrible conclusion to that story but I think the match in isolation is pretty good.

Hunter is probably going to be on my list but he's one of these guys who's difficult to place because my feelings about him as a wrestler are all wrapped up in feelings about him personally, how he was booked and boring 30 minute promos to open Raw at various times from 2002 to 2016.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's interesting how much Triple H's bad stuff is weighted against him relative to how much someone like Andre's bad stuff is weighted against him.

 

And by the same token interesting how much Triple H's best stuff is taken into consideration vs. someone like Andre's best stuff.

 

All that said, I couldn't care less about Triple H. I do recall liking the Foley match at Rumble 2000 a lot.

 

His recent stuff is not good. I didn't like the Bryan match everyone raved about, and thought people went stupid about that. Hated Brock match. Thought the Sting match was comedy gold, but sucked from a wrestling standpoint.

 

I have the same problems with his work, generally, as a lot of people here. Seems poor at constructing a narrative in the ring, uses that hammer as a crutch, etc.

 

He still probably has 10 very good to great matches to his name, which is actually quite a lot. So he might make my list based on BIGLAV rating.

[WingedEagle]

The Andre comparison is vey, very interesting for the reasons you noted. I'd have the Bryan match above Hansen or Khan for Andre. Not sure about the Foley Rumble match. After that not sure Andre has anything touching trip's top 10.

[Mando]

He's not going to sniff my Top 100.

[BigBadMick]

In his defense, here's a rundown of what I feel is his good-or-better output, post 2001 -

 

2002 - v Angle early in the year, v Jericho in HiaC

 

2003 - nothing

 

2004 - WM, Backlash, v Benoit at Vengeance, a great triple threat with Edge and Benoit in Nov/Dec

 

2005 - Elimination Chamber, HiaC with Batista, Flair in the cage match, a couple of good Raw matches with Benoit

 

2006 - WM (Bit torn here - not really a match that helped Cena, but he wrestled well), V Edge v Cena (Backlash). Not a fan of the DX stuff, but as the year closed they had a decent 6 man with Cena v Orton Edge Umaga

 

2007 - DX v Edge Orton was going very well until his knee fell apart, loved his streetfight with Umaga in October or November, and the LMS v Orton around the same time.

 

2008 - Really contributed to a very good Elimation chamber in Feb, good match v Edge in July, generally liked his move to Smackdown (Nice match v taker there) Really strong triple threat with Edge and Jeff Hardy in Dec

 

2009 - Good performance in Elimination chamber, and the 6 man tag at Backlash. Another DX reunion gave us one good match v Rhodes and DiBiase jr at Summerslam, and the ladder match v Jerishow in Dec.

 

2010 - liked the WM and Backlash matches with Sheamus

 

2011 - big fan of v Undertaker. Not so much the Punk and Nash matches

 

2012 - big fan of v Undertaker. Enjoyed the SummerSlam Lesnar match, but it looks very tame now.

 

2013 - Didnt like the Lesnar matches

 

2014 - Really enjoyed the WM match, and the first 6 man with Shield

 

2015 - Nope

[DR Ackermann]

He still probably has 10 very good to great matches to his name, which is actually quite a lot. So he might make my list based on BIGLAV rating.

 

This is a guy with more big matches than almost anyone in the last two decades. His whole career is pretty much on tape and he had the the advantage of being in the main event and an input on the booking. With that said, 10 very good to great matches is not much of an accomplishment. In comparison to his peers how many memorable/great matches does he have from the time period that actually hold up? What is his ratio of huge disappointments to very good or just good matches? He has consistently failed to put out quality despite being in the marquee matchup on a huge number of shows and his "great" matches don't really hold up. How many good non-gimmick matches does he have?

[JerryvonKramer]

Since when is having good non-gimmick matches a consideration? What difference does it make? I don't care what the stips are. Is the match good?

 

HHH will be punished in my ratings when it comes to his base stats, he just isn't very good, and in other areas. He will likely get a 4 or 5 for "Great matches" and will also do well in Variety, which comes as a natural by-product of working on top of a big promotion for so long.

 

If all the numbers end up coming to more than whatever the baseline is for guy #100, he will make the list.

[DR Ackermann]

There are a lot more bells and whistles involved with your typical gimmick match. Part of being a great wrestler is being able to go out and have great matches without all that. If you can't go out and do something memorable without all the special effects, how good of a wrestler are you really? I don't knock a guy for being involved in gimmick matches, you still have to make them work. My point is that Triple H doesn't have very many memorable non-gimmick matches for a reason. Gimmick matches stand out. Great matches stand out. His stand out matches are almost all gimmicky and in my eyes, overrated.

[JerryvonKramer]

I dunno, I haven't really seen that been brought against anyone else in this whole thing over the past two years.

 

Haven't really thought about it to be honest.

 

Probably timely cos I'm about to watch a whole bunch of Onita.

[Matt D]

I dunno, I haven't really seen that been brought against anyone else in this whole thing over the past two years.

 

Haven't really thought about it to be honest.

 

Probably timely cos I'm about to watch a whole bunch of Onita.

It's a general HOF argument about Edge's work. That's where you see it the most.

[GOTNW]

I don't think any of Triple H's garbage matches except the Foley ones were great.

[DR Ackermann]

I don't even really like the Foley ones.

[DR Ackermann]

Also, I'm not knocking Triple H for being in a bunch of gimmick matches. I'm just pointing out that those are the ones that seem to stand out and it's not like he is doing anything special with them. Why doesn't he have more matches that stand out simply for being good?

[Matt D]

I posted my comments on the Last Man Standing Jericho match yesterday or the day before. I think almost all of HHH's big matches suffer from bloat and would be better and tighter if 5-10 minutes were lopped off of them. That's one reason why the Bryan match worked out so well.

 

Generally, I don't think his great matches are great, in part because they contain the same inherent deficiencies as his worst matches. They're all on shaky ground. Some of them just collapse under their own weight more than others.

 

Hunter, to me, comes off as a "pretend wrestler" much more than a lot of wrestlers who get pegged as that.

[jcmmnx]

The guy has some great matches, but his batting average is about .050. He's had maybe two singles matches since the first quad injury that I liked.

[JRGoldman]

 

Hunter, to me, comes off as a "pretend wrestler" much more than a lot of wrestlers who get pegged as that.

 

I came here to post something very similar, but I think this sums it up. He's basically Zack Sabre Jr but with unlimited resources and an affinity for Harley and Flair instead of Johnny Saint.

[BigBadMick]

In his defense, here's a rundown of what I feel is his good-or-better output, post 2001 -

 

2002 - v Angle early in the year, v Jericho in HiaC

 

2003 - nothing

 

2004 - WM, Backlash, v Benoit at Vengeance, a great triple threat with Edge and Benoit in Nov/Dec

 

2005 - Elimination Chamber, HiaC with Batista, Flair in the cage match, a couple of good Raw matches with Benoit

 

2006 - WM (Bit torn here - not really a match that helped Cena, but he wrestled well), V Edge v Cena (Backlash). Not a fan of the DX stuff, but as the year closed they had a decent 6 man with Cena v Orton Edge Umaga

 

2007 - DX v Edge Orton was going very well until his knee fell apart, loved his streetfight with Umaga in October or November, and the LMS v Orton around the same time.

 

2008 - Really contributed to a very good Elimation chamber in Feb, good match v Edge in July, generally liked his move to Smackdown (Nice match v taker there) Really strong triple threat with Edge and Jeff Hardy in Dec

 

2009 - Good performance in Elimination chamber, and the 6 man tag at Backlash. Another DX reunion gave us one good match v Rhodes and DiBiase jr at Summerslam, and the ladder match v Jerishow in Dec.

 

2010 - liked the WM and Backlash matches with Sheamus

 

2011 - big fan of v Undertaker. Not so much the Punk and Nash matches

 

2012 - big fan of v Undertaker. Enjoyed the SummerSlam Lesnar match, but it looks very tame now.

 

2013 - Didnt like the Lesnar matches

 

2014 - Really enjoyed the WM match, and the first 6 man with Shield

 

2015 - Nope

 

Sorry, I meant to write earlier please feel free to add to/delete from this list.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's interesting cos I've never seen an iota of Flair in HHH's performance.

[thebrainfollower]

There's a knee and the long heel title run. Other than that there's not much of Flair in HHH.

 

HHH would not make a list of any amount of wrestlers I could name. There is nobody in wrestling I despise more. Ignoring all the political stuff, his matches have bored me from day 1. Even the vaunted Foley classics I see as Foley doing far more of the work than most seem to see. About the only I liked was the ladder match from Summerslam and that's almost all due to Rock.

 

HHH is so many of the things wrong with wrestling put into a single person it's not even funny. And it's not "great heel heat" it's to the point that I usually just turn the channel or leave the room if he's on, and I've felt that way since about 1999. Before that he was just a nuisance I didn't care for.

Having said that he absolutely did the right thing at the end in the Daniel Bryan feud. I give him that. He's more willing to make talent look at his expense than his wife is.