I've seen a lot of crazy things on WWF television. It's the high spots that usually stick out – Shane McMahon was one of my favorite wrestlers last year, because even though he had few matches, something crazy always happened during them. His match against Kurt Angle at the 2001 King of the Ring was by far my favorite match of the night. Just like a lot of other Attitude era fans, I guess I get bored pretty easily.
On the other hand, some matches are memorable almost solely because of the storyline attached to them. The night of the ECW turn in 2001 was my favorite RAW of all time. I realized just seconds before it happened that everyone running to the ring had at one time or another been in ECW, and I can still remember the look on Bubba Ray Dudley's face as he slowly turned around, symbolizing his and everyone else's allegiance to their former promotion. That night stayed with me for days. "Remember this day", Heyman told JR, and he knew we would, because the backstory behind it wasn't just part of the WWF storyline. It was pulled out of real life, a re-enactment of Heyman's attempt to down the WWF giant and make ECW the top promotion in the world. ECW may have gone bankrupt, but for a brief moment the feud was reborn, and it was easy to forget that it was fiction.
Another match that ranks among my storyline-favorites was the night Jericho and Benoit won the tag titles from Austin and HHH in 2001, which was the night that HHH tore his quadricep muscle. At the time we didn't know about his muscle, but my friends and I literally jumped out of our chairs cheering when Jericho and Benoit won, because we never expected it to happen. It was a definite mark-out moment.
I watched that match again during the New Years Eve Best of 2001 RAW broadcast, and the second time it didn't hold the same weight. Benoit and HHH were both off tv, Austin was a face and Jericho was a heel, so the storyline they were presenting was far removed from how things were currently going. It didn't hold the same weight, but it actually ended up holding a different and greater weight, because knowing about HHH's injury, I think it was the craziest match I've ever seen.
I'll have to qualify that – the craziest match I've ever seen was the Foley/Undertaker Hell in a Cell. I've also seen people dropped on their heads and paralyzed by misjudging a moonsault, and no doubt, those are the craziest things you'll ever see in wrestling, but those are bad crazy. They're things you don't want to see. You don't want to see someone break their neck, and you don't want to see Foley chokeslammed accidentally through the top of a cage. If you do, I think you're watching wrestling for the wrong reasons. Things like that just make me feel bad about the whole sport.
On the other hand, there's good crazy. Good crazy is people pushing themselves to their limit, going above and beyond, doing things you'd never expect them to do and doing things that you know you yourself might not accomplish, even in their shoes. That's why I call the Austin/HHH vs. Benoit/Jericho match the craziest match I ever saw. Watching it again and knowing about HHH's injury completely changed my perception of it. Originally, I was amazed because Benoit and Jericho won the belts from the two top talents in the company. The second time, I was amazed by HHH.
I knew exactly when his quadricep tore, as I'd seen the footage dozens of times during HHH info promos. Austin was in the Walls, HHH ran into the ring to hit Jericho and break the hold, he planted his foot and bam. Down he went. That's when I started watching him very closely, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Things I had hardly paid attention to when I first saw the match were now of enormous significance, and the mere fact that he managed to stand up was the first thing that struck me. He rolled out of the ring, he hobbled to the announce table, and that's when I saw the craziest thing I have ever seen in wrestling.
He took the top off of the announce table and started taking the monitors out, one at a time, knowing that he was going to be on that table in the Walls of Jericho a minute later.
That's something I could never have done. With an injury that severe, in the amount of pain he must have been in, I would have done anything to find another way. I might not have bowed out of the match completely, but I would have found some way to explain to Jericho what had happened, I would never have let him put me in that hold. But HHH did it, and it wasn't the hold or the limp up the ramp at the end of the match that stayed with me as much as those few seconds when he was pulling out those monitors, hunched over in obvious pain, but not stopping. I just couldn't believe it. In my opinion, that was the moment that separated HHH not only from the average man, but also from most of his peers. That's what really showed me that he is dedicated to his craft, that he would go through anything to make sure the match ended as it was supposed to end, and that no amount of pain could stop him.
To really nail things home they played the U2 Beautiful Day promo directly after the match, and I was so swept up in HHH admiration that when the WWF came to town a few days later, I laid down $50 for a HHH jersey without a second thought. I always respected HHH, but seeing how he dealt with a horrible and completely unforeseeable injury pushed my respect for him into overdrive. I have no doubt that he rose to the top of the industry because of his hard work, his dedication and his perseverance. Not because of a catchphrase, not because of internal politics, but because he gives everything he has to his profession, he doesn't back down, he is the fucking Game. Guys like him remind me why I've spent hundreds of hours watching wrestling and why ultimately, amazing wrestlers transcend high spots and gimmicks. It may be the jokes and the characters that string me along watching the show week to week, but ultimately, it's guys like HHH that I'll remember. His character isn't a fabrication, it's an amplification of how he really is. His intensity is not the creation of a great actor, it's really inside him. You'll see people in interviews calling him "Paul", but Paul isn't his name. That's the name he was born with, that's the name his parents gave him, but his name is Hunter. He is Triple H. He and the image he portrays of himself are one and the same, and that's something very few people in this world can honestly claim.
HHH is coming back tonight, and I can't wait to see him again.
Jan.07/02
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