Triple H says he and The Rock missed out on having a singles match at WrestleMania twice.
The two stars often battled each other throughout the Attitude Era, and they competed in a four-way match at WrestleMania 2000. Back in 2017, Triple H noted that he and The Rock had previously discussed facing each other at WrestleMania, and he would be open to it. The match never became a reality, and "The Game" retired from in-ring competition earlier in 2022.
Speaking on LADbible TV's SPORTbible Stories, Triple H was asked to name a rivalry that stood out to him, and he named his lengthy feud with The Rock. He noted that their careers mirrored each other as they rose to the top of WWE.
“The Rock and I is an interesting thing because I come in a little bit before he does as a talent, and I’m Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He comes in as Rocky Maivia. We wrestle over the Intercontinental Title. He becomes The Rock, goes with the Nation of Domination. I transform to Triple H, like we’re coming out of these characters, transform to Triple H, DX is formed. We have rivalries over that, so over the Intercontinental Title, then we get into these groups and it’s sort of DX versus The Nation. He and I are battling over the Intercontinental Championship again, and he full-blown becomes The Rock, leaves The Nation. I become Triple H, leave DX. We battle over the WWE Championship. Our careers sort of in a way marry each other and are intertwined with each other along the way," Triple H said.
He then pointed out that he and The Rock never had a singles match at WrestleMania, though they had set something in motion a few years ago until the latter's acting career prevented it from happening.
"We never sort of had that defining WrestleMania moment. A few years ago, we teased he and I wrestling one more time, and it was on that, he came to me and was like, ‘Hey dude, I got one more in me. I wanna do it with you. I want you and I to have that WrestleMania sort of moment, and let’s do it at WrestleMania. It turned out that it was for the following year, so we had done this video for it, and we’re ready to go with it, and somewhere along the time of that year, his movie career sort of changed and he was like, ‘Ah man, I’m not gonna be able to do this. The timing just doesn’t work out right, and I can’t pass up this other opportunity. No problem. But that’s really where we were headed," Triple H said.
Triple H also recalled how they were supposed to have an Iron Man Match at WrestleMania 2000, but it was delayed to the Backlash pay-per-view because Steve Austin wasn't ready to return to the ring in time for WrestleMania.
"So our careers, sort of up until he left for Hollywood, there was this crazy moment, or crazy moments through all of it where it mirrored each other, during that period of time when Austin left. It really sort of becomes, in a lot of ways, you still have Taker, you have Mick Foley, you have a lot of players, but it becomes at a high level about me and Rock in a lot of ways. Then Austin returns, it’s why he didn’t, in 2000, we had a WrestleMania, it was a Fatal Four-Way with a McMahon in each corner and all that. It was originally supposed to be Rock and I in the Iron Man match that we did I think at Backlash. They postponed that to Backlash because Austin wasn’t ready to return yet, so we sort of pushed the match out a month, which he and I fought hard against, but it was like, it’s better for business overall if [we do] this, and get past WrestleMania to get to that. But that sort of would have been the culmination of my rivalry with him and him with me, and it’s sort of something we sort of missed out on," he said.
Angelo Dawkins recently shared his thoughts on working for Triple H. You can check out his comments here. Plus, click here to see what Triple H had to say about Logan Paul and Bad Bunny.
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