POWERSLAM MAGAZINE
Quote:
In World Wrestling Entertainment, detail is crucial: it’s so important, in fact, that the McMahon family’s fingerprints can be found on virtually everything emblazoned with a WWE logo. A micromanager, supreme leader Vince McMahon works 80 hours per week, and obsesses over every aspect of WWE’s output. It is a work ethic he has handed down to his top lieutenant, the Executive Vice President, Creative Wrestling, Talent Relations & Live Events (could her job title be any longer?) Stephanie McMahon-Levesque. In WWE creative team meetings, Vince likes to brag what separates WWE from it’s competition, past (WCW) and present (TNA), is quality control. We’re talking McMahon family pride and consistency here: that’s what they personally bring to WWE’s product. To Vince and Stephanie, WWE is the commercial embodiment of the McMahon family, and that means WWE has to be just as perfect as what the egotistical father and daughter see in the mirror each day. Whether it’s RAW announcer Michael Cole’s tone of voice or the way Vladimir Kozlov sells or the ring entrances which are tailor-made for each star performer, WWE fans can rest assured that they are seeing and hearing exactly what the McMahon’s want.
Since all the facets of WWE’s image are meticulously planned and stage-managed from the top, insiders know that everything is done for a reason. Each detail contains valuable clues about the McMahon brain trust’s plans for WWE’s future. That’s why it should come as no surprise that a memo distributed to the media in August by THQ, publishers of WWE’s forthcoming SmackDown Vs RAW 2009 video game, has been the source of so much buzz and controversy in wrestling circles. As reported in last month’s issue, THQ laid down the ground rules for screenshots from the new game, the most scandalous of which will haunt Paul Levesque forever: “Refrain from showing Triple H in a losing/defeated/defenceless position.” The absurdity of this request bears repeating: WWE was so protective of Triple H that it requested no magazines publish photographs of the animated version of him appearing vulnerable. In a normally shambolic wrestling company like WCW or TNA, this would have been regarded as a fluke P.R. mishap, a quirky bureaucratic miscommunication or an isolated incident of vanity run amuck – not necessarily a part of some grand plan dictated from the top. Since this was a WWE directive, however, wrestling fans and insiders saw this memo as one more meaningful piece of evidence corroborating the near-decade-long conspiracy to shove Triple H down the throats of the fan base ahead of his co-workers.
The backlash online was predictable: words to the effect of “HHH is now holding down wrestlers in video games” were posted on websites and forums. The folks in Stamford, Connecticut certainly asked for it. WWE/THQ did not forbid journals from publishing screenshots of any other WWE performer “in a losing/defeated/defenceless position”: magazines can run a dozen images of Batista, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Randy Orton or The Undertaker getting beaten up, if they wish. The stipulation in the press release was just an extension of the preferential treatment that HHH has received, really since his memorable wedding angle with Stephanie McMahon, whom he had drugged and married against her will at a drive-through wedding chapel in Las Vegas the night before she was supposed to marry Test on the November 29, 1999 RAW (that, more than his first WWF title win on the post-Summerslam 1999 RAW, was the turning point for HHH: once he was linked with Steph and embroiled in a deeply personal feud with Vince McMahon, he had it made) Triple H’s win over Vince in the main event of Armageddon on December 12, 1999 – following which, reluctant bridge Stephanie decided that she enjoyed being married to HHH after all – set the ball rolling for ‘The Game’ after a rocky few months in which he had won, lost, regained and dropped the WWF title. On January 3, 2000, he captured the WWF title for a third time from Big Show and then scored back-to-back victories over Mick ‘Cactus Jack’ Foley at the very successful Royal Rumble (in a stellar Street Fight) and No Way Out events (where he supposedly ended Foley’s career in the Hell in a Cell), and bagged an unprecedented heel victory in the Fatal Four Way main event of WrestleMania 2000, then the biggest money-making PPV in wrestling history. HHH, who would deservedly be ranked number one in the 2000 PS 50 after working further blinders with The Rock, Chris Jericho and others had an incredible year commercially as well: the WWF made a massive profit of $68.9 million between April 2000 and April 2001, if the company hadn’t launched the disastrous XFL in Steve Austin’s absence (November 1999-September 2000), HHH was one of the top two names in the company (with The Rock) a position which he clearly warranted. But as good and successful as he was, many were growing to resent him . . .
In September 2000, Stephanie McMahon replaced the late Chris Kreski as the WWF’s head writer, and soon entered into a real-life relationship with her on-screen husband, while he was still going out with Joanie ‘Chyna’ Laurer (Levesque and Laurer split when Laurer learned of the Levesque/Steph affair) It is worth noting that even before the Levesque/Stephanie relationship began, HHH had ingratiated himself with the McMahons and obtained booking influence in the company. With head writer Steph as his new girlfriend, that influence inevitably increased. Before long, the gossip that ‘The Game’ was harnessing Stephanie’s creative power to hinder or torpedo his enemies’ careers while promoting himself to the detriment of the company’s best interests because accepted as common fact throughout the industry. Was it fact or simply a vicious rumour, triggered by jealously of his seven-figure-per-annum main event spot in the promotion? In a business filled with hypocrisy, lies, distrust and fluctuating allegiances, how seriously should fans take the reports about Triple H’s reign of terror backstage? What exactly has he done to earn this fearsome reputation? Seeking inside opinion, your writer quizzed several WWE employees, past and present about Triple H and his impact on WWE booking. The answers may surprise you. For a laugh, I contacted one WWE writer whom I hoped would be willing to contribute to this article but expected to declined, for reasons I cannot divulge. To my surprise, the subject of Triple H’s escapades backstage so deeply affected him that he sent me a lengthy reply in which he detailed Levesque’s standing in the company. Here is a reproduction of one section of his e-mail that I thought would particularly interest Power Slam readers. It is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, a revealing view of the WWE backstage workplace . . .
“When I first started working as a writer in the WWE, this is the creative format that was used: we all pitched ideas to our respective show’s head writer and then they would e-mail a draft of the show to the full writing staff, Vince and Stephanie on Friday night. This would allow all of us to read the shows before the marathon Saturday conference calls that would begin at 9am and continue, on some days as late as 5am. But there was one additional person, who would receive the shows: HHH. His position as a member of WWE creative was never established, yet he had to get a copy of the show, lest we incur both his and Stephanie’s wrath. Curiously enough, HHH would never participate in any of the conference calls. His changes would be passed on to Stephanie. She would declare in a firm voice on the Saturday conference calls, ‘Hunter doesn’t like that idea, and this is what he wants to change it to.’ Then Vince would always say in a nice, soft tone, which was unusual for him: ‘Hmmmmm. What do you all think of that?” Brian Gewirtz, the notorious Stephanie and HHH lackey, would always be the first to reply, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea, Steph!’ in his Eddie Munster voice. Then every other writer, with the exception of one or two, would chime in saying variants of ‘I agree’ and ‘good idea’, etc. Then Vince would say, ‘Well, if there’s no disagreement, make the changes, Brian.’ Same routine, over and over, whenever it involved a change suggested by HHH. It seemed like a work to me: Stephanie firmly declares HHH’s idea, Vince acts neutral towards it and asks for our opinions, and then Gewirtz quickly kisses Stephanie’s ass, prompting everyone else to agree.
“This routine would never change, except those weeks when we had a triple-header work marathon (Sunday PPV, RAW on Monday, Tuesday taping of SmackDown): we would work on the RAW scripts during the day of the Sunday PPV. In those instances we wouldn’t e-mail the scripts to HHH --- we would hand-deliver them to him. Normally, the head writer of the show would give it to him, but occasionally that job fell to me. I remember being nervous the first time I delivered the script to the McMahon dressing room where HHH would dress (he would never use the locker rooms with the rest of the boys). When HHH answered I told him the RAW script was ready for his review. On the first occasion, he grabbed the script, flipped through it but did not read it, and asked me point-blank: ‘Am I f—king going over?’ This first time that I delivered the script to him, he did indeed win his match, so I said yes. Then he politely gave the script back to me without reading it and said, ‘That’s all I needed to know,’ and walked back into the McMahon locker room. A few months later when Gewirtz had another weekend off, I delivered another RAW script to him on a PPV Sunday. And it was the same routine. He nonchalantly flipped through it and said, ‘Am I f—king going over?’ This time, however, he was to lose his match via disqualification. He would keep his title. I said to him, ‘Well, sort of.’ Then HHH froze. He said, ‘What do you f—king mean, sort of?’ I said, ‘You lose the match via DQ, so you still keep the title.’, ‘What page?’ he growled. After I told HHH the page number this occurred on, he ripped that page out, threw the rest of the script to the floor in a rage, and slammed the door in my face. Needless to say, the next day during the agents’ meeting, the script had somehow changed and now HHH won his match – cleanly. This was hardly an isolated incident.
“Ultimately, it’s not HHH’s fault or even Stephanie’s fault, really. WWE is Vince’s company: no one challenges him or what he says must happen. I spent a lot of time with both HHH and Vince together --- in some cases, five hours a day, especially when we had to take Vince’s Challenger Jet from Connecticut to somewhere on the West Coast. And the fact is that Vince has no objectivity when it comes to HHH. When any of us writers come up with an idea, Vince would say things like: ‘That’s great! Why am I even paying these guys?’ and then laugh, while pointing at all of us strikers. In stark contrast, when Shane McMahon would sit in on some agent meetings, his ideas would be shot down by Vince. Vince was at his most human when interacting with Shame, in that he would yell at Shane like any dad yells at his son, but the yelling was always to try and make Shane better. With HHH, though, Vince would never publicly disagree with him. And with Stephanie by his side, he would accept whatever trash HHH spewed. After all, Vince would do anything for his baby girl. She would incessantly whine to him about putting HHH over, so Vince would do that for her . . .”
As incredible as this writer’s account of the backstage environment in the company might seem, his story is remarkably similar to others I was told in interviews I conducted with various WWE writers, producers, agents and backstage personalities for this article and for my book, Ring of Hell. That, to no surprise, leads us to the conclusion that the gossip about Triple H’s domineering influence backstage appears to be fundamentally true. In Ring of Hell, I quoted former WWE writer Dr. Ranjan Chhibber as saying that HHH once summoned him to a one-on-one meeting to personally advise him to abandon his friendly with then-WWE writer Paul Heyman, so he could instead form a new working relationship with HHH’s buddy Gewirtz (who had a long-running feud with Heyman). A WWE official interviewed for this article told me that HHH’s power is so indomitable backstage that, “If HHH tells a joke, everyone has to laugh. If you don’t laugh, you will be noticed and called out. It happened to me once, and Stephanie said, ‘What’s the matter: don’t you have a sense of humour?’ “ Let’s be frank: it hardly takes insider testimony to determine that Triple H has continually benefited from the sympathetic booking. While others are presented as vulnerable and occasionally silly, WWE for nearly nine years has ensured that the HHH character is always strong, dominated and smart, even when he plays heel. There are so many examples, stretching from the month Stephanie was appointed head writer in 2000, that it’s easy to come up with a list of incidents:
2000: Triple H pins Kurt Angle at Unforgiven to abruptly end the extremely over HHH/Stephanie/Angle love triangle storyline.
2001: Steve Austin, the wrestler who did more to make Vince McMahon a billionaire than any other, is demoted to the position of HHH’s heel associate in April and May. ‘Stone Cold’ and ‘The Game’ had never been close: this only drives the wedge deeper. Meanwhile, ‘The Game’ squashes rising star Jeff Hardy to remind everyone of his overwhelming superiority.
2002: Undisputed champion Chris Jericho plays the demeaning role of Stephanie’s poop-scooping butler and Triple H’s punching bag on road to WrestleMania X8, after ‘The Cerebral Assassin’ vetoes the original plan that Jericho and Stephanie are to have an affair behind his back. Jericho predictably loses the Undisputed title to HHH in a ‘Mania match which could not hope to follow The Rock Vs Hollywood Hogan, but is placed in the main event spot at Hunter’s request, so the image of him holding both title belts closes the show. At Unforgiven in September, HHH pins Rob Van Dam, another rising star. Sharp as a tack, RVD already knows what HHH’s game is.
2003: Triple H denies underdog Booker T a victory at WrestleMania XIX after degrading him with racist innuendo for weeks. In their match, heel HHH hits the Pedigree and waits 23 seconds before making the winning pin on Booker. Add ‘The Book’ to the list of people who resent Triple H.
2004: New World Champion Randy Orton is portrayed as a cowardly babyface, who dumps the title to heel Triple H at Unforgiven, just four weeks after winning it.
2005: HHH triumphs in the Elimination Chamber match at New Year’s Revolution, winning the title from --- yes! --- HHH, who had vacated it in November, so he could regain it and pad his own title record. (This is his fifth World title, by the way.)
2006: HHH and Shawn Michaels smash five careers with their senseless slaughter of The Spirit Squad. Meanwhile, HHH decides that no younger talent, who might potentially benefit from the association, are allowed to join him and Michaels in the reformed DX.
2007: HHH is pinned by Jeff Hardy at Armageddon in a textbook example of how to technically lose a match while burying your opponent . . .
My sources also confirm the widely held belief that Levesque uses his influence to impede or sabotage careers of wrestlers he’s not even facing. Two WWE writers whom I spoke to for this feature --- who naturally insisted on anonymity before they would talk honestly about Triple --- offered specific examples. The first writer claimed that Tripper’s venomous attacks contributed to the exit of Mick Foley and Billy Kidman from the WWE roster. He told us HHH disparaged Foley whenever he appeared for the company, and diminished his value in the eyes of the McMahon family. “Foley is an out-of-shape nobody,” HHH was reported as saying “Funaki puts more **** in seats than Foley does. He should pay us for coming on our shows.” Meanwhile, HHH’s derogatory appraisal of Billy Kidman at an agents’ meeting resulted in Kidman’s relegation to former broadcast Velocity and eventual release from his contract in July 2005 (Kidman was later rehired as a trainer in Florida Championship Wrestling.) The second writer sagely noted that fans can learn much about the real HHH from the few televised moments when he has let his guard down. “Triple H is on tape in the Bret Hart documentary claiming he knew nothing about the Montreal double-cross that was planned against Bret.” Said this WWE writer. “He looked right into Bret’s wife’s eyes and says he knew nothing about it, yet many times since he has bragged about knowing what was going to happen beforehand. Something of a character flaw, don’t you think? All you have to do is listen to some of the promos he cuts on other wrestlers he does not like or feels intimidated by, such as the promo he cut on Chris Masters on RAW in October 2006 (in which he mocked the steroid-free Masters’ dramatic muscle mass loss) . . . He also once cut a promo on John Morrison (then Johnny Nitro) by calling him something to the effect of ‘Johnny Oversell’ --- not exactly the way to ‘put over’ your fellow wrestlers to help build the business!”
As touched upon earlier, this blatantly disrespectful conduct has raised the ire of many former and current co-workers of Triple H. (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson had a long-running backstage rivalry with HHH, which was alluded to at the Hall of Fame ceremony this year.) In Issue 170 of Power Slam, the ever-candid Randy Orton revealed that Umaga’s initial response to his trade to Smackdown in the 2008 draft was, “Man, you know what? At least I haven’t got to deal with Triple H no more.” When HHH was also transferred to SmackDown from RAW later in the draft, RAW roster survivor Orton reported his response as: “Yes! Oh, my God, yes, yes, yes!” while punching the air. “I went right up to Umaga,” Orton continued, “and I was, like, ‘You’ve got to deal with him now!’ It was my favourite draft pick, to be honest with you.” That’s the voice of experience talking. At a June press conference to promote a WWE event in Chile, Carlito said: “My opinion is that (marrying Stephanie) was a smart move by (HHH). I think that’s why he’s the champion now and has been champion in the past; it’s easier to him. We, the real wrestlers, don’t depend on people in the business . . . Others are given champions (on) a plate of gold or platinum, (though) I’m happy for him.”
(Since Carlito is the son of Carlos Colon, Puerto Rico’s most famous ever wrestler, and was pushed immediately following his debut in his father’s WWC promotion on the island in 1999, those comments irked some in the profession. Nevertheless, Carlito does not receive special treatment in WWE.) Naturally, wrestlers who are no longer with WWE and don’t have to fear HHH’s reprisals are free to denounce the “son-in-law” in far more graphic terms. “He’s like Kevin Federline of professional wrestling,” said Scott Steiner in an interview with the Stranglehold radio show in May. “Being married to the boss’ daughter brings a lot of protection. These are guys up there right now who want to beat the hell out of him, but you know, they know they’d lose their jobs, so they don’t.” Steiner continued his assault on HHH in two interviews with The Baltimore Sun that same month. In the latter, on May 28, he told one famous story about an attempt by HHH to thwart Kurt Angle’s progress in the WWF which actually failed. Scott Steiner: “It’s no secret what Kurt Angle thought of Triple H . . . Here’s one story I got from Kurt: Triple H was trying to block Kurt from winning the WWF title, he said in a meeting, ‘I think Kurt Angle’s too small.’ And Gerry Brisco stood up and said, ‘Well, what do you think would happen if you guys fought for real?’ and HHH sat down, shut his mouth and they ran with it. Even Triple H’s former friend Monty ‘Billy Gunn/KipJames’ Sopp, for whom HHH engineered several pushes in the WWF/WWE, blasted Levesque in a shoot interview (his comments are unprintable in this magazine). The list of active wrestlers I’ve spoken with who have knocked HHH, off the record, goes on and on . . .
So, if everything unpleasant that’s said about Triple H is generally true, the question becomes: why? If the evidence for HHH’s behaviour is clear, the explanations for it are anything but. Paul Michael Levesque has every conceivable reason to be a shining, self-assured role model for good, selfless action backstage in WWE. Professionally, his position is untouchable: as Stephanie’s husband (they were married in October 2003) and father of two of Vince’s grandchildren, Triple H will have the booking committee in his corner for the rest of his career. With his stardom and political dominance so thoroughly established, Levesque should understand that there’s nothing undercutting another wrestler’s career can do to benefit his position or losing a feud can do to damage his character. The worst of HHH’s abuses make even less sense when reviewed in the context of the outstanding work he has done on occasion over the past few years. There could not have been a more selfless or effective way to elevate Batista than the manner in which Triple H repeatedly put ‘The Animal’ over in their excellent break-up storyline and later in their matches in the first half of 2005. The next year, Triple H lost to John Cena by submission in the Main Event of Wrestlemania 22. After the promos in the run-up to the match, in which HHH had unnecessarily belittled Cena’s wrestling ability, few expected that result on the big show.
Even Triple H’s burial of Jeff Hardy in December 2007 has been redemmed by his giving performance in the Elimination Chamber match at No Way Out 2008 and at No Mercy earlier this month. In these bouts, Triple H manifested some of the professional generosity and maturity that made his idol, Ric Flair, the ultimate “oversell and selflessly put over the other guy.” NWA World Champion in the 1980s. Furthermore, as a multi-millionaire and 39-year old father of two, one would have imagined that Levesque would have outgrown that juvenile impulse to flaunt his clout, just because he can. As a future inheritor of the WWE empire, eventually earmarked for his children, Levesque should be less concerned with beating wrestlers than using his own backstage and in-ring muscle to build new acts to safegyard the long-term profitability of what is his own family business. With this in mind, Triple H’s demolition of many of his most lucrative potential opponents over the years (Rob Van Dam, Booker T, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, etc.) cannot even be called selfish, since it conflicts with his own personal, financial and familial best interests. Such self-destructive, illogical behaviour on Levesque’s part must ultimately be the result of some inherent character flaw: after all, there is no rational explanation for HHH’s record of power trips. One popular explanation is that, despite his amazing success in the business, Triple H harbours insecurity – that is, doubts he fully deserved the push he has received throughout this decade. It is a trait common among beneficiaries of nepotism.
A number of wrestlers, Kurt Angle and Scott Steiner among them, have claimed that HHH underminede their careers because he was secretly jealous they were tougher, stronger and more credible wrestlers than he could ever hope to be. If the true source of Levesque’s behaviour is dissatisfaction with himself that he redirects outwords, then he should be pitied: any wrestler who remains personally discontent after the prosperity Triple H has enjoyed will always be miserable, self-loathing man. “I don’t think HHH’s problem is so much insecurity as much as that when you get that much power, you use it to protect yourself,” continued Wrestling Observer Newsletter editor Dave Meltzer. “I think it’s what he was taught be (Kevin) Nash and Michaels.” As longtime fans know, they were both infamous in the 1990s for their backstage machinations when they were on top in the WWF and later, in Nash’s case, WCW. There is one more explanation for Triple H’s abuse of power, and it may be the most likely answer: Levesque is simply a disrespectful, power-hungry jerk, who does what he wants, when he wants and doesn’t care what other people think. Perhaps that’s why father in law Vince – a man whose on-screen character is essentially inseparable from his real-life personality – likes him so much. If that’s true and Levesque is playing the scheming ‘Cerebral Assassin.’ On-screen and off, then Triple H’s current and future co-workers will have to watch their backs, as Paul and Stephanie take over the family business. WWE’s future may or may not be bright --- but it will certainly be bloody with Triple H at the helm.
