wrestling

Julian Cannon here to give everyone a new movie review. This time, it is something I picked up not too long ago: the recently released “Triple H: THY KINGDOM COME.”

The DVD starts on how Triple H (Paul Levesque) broke into the business after winning bodybuilding competitions. He then talks about his training with Killer Kowalski and Terry Taylor. There were clips of a younger Triple H when he was cutting promos and doing matches. For a guy that young, he knew what he was doing and he learned pretty fast. Killer Kowalski gave him the name “The Terrorizer,” although Triple H hated the name because it was too “generic.” He, however, just wanted to wrestle so he took the name no matter what. After a few months, Triple H found a local wrestler in the gym who worked for WCW, who then sent in a word to Eric Bischoff for him to join WCW for a two year contract. Triple H said that he only wanted one year just because he did not want Bischoff to spend a lot of money on him until he sees what he can do in the ring. When he went to WCW, he tweaked his ring name to “Terror Rising.” He was a major player in the mid card division for a while until he met Ric Flair. The two have been friends ever since. At the end of 1994, Triple H was repackaged and brought back with a French gimmick and teamed with William Regal for a short time until in 1995, when he was called up to WWE (then WWF.)

When he arrived in WWE, he used the name “Hunter Hearst Hemsley” with a similar gimmick he had before he left WCW. Then we get interviews from Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels and Sean “X-Pac” Waltman. They all remarked that they all took him under their wing (including Scott Hall and Justin Credible) as the backstage group was formed as the Kliq. Triple H and Kevin Nash mentioned that Lex Luger was the one to come up with the Kliq name and hand gestures. Things would go great for them until the Madison Square Garden incident in May of 1996. It was Hall and Nash’s last night before heading to WCW.  This was also the night when they, along with Triple H and Shawn Michaels, all came out and embraced in the ring out of character (breaking “kayfabe”). In the wrestling world back then, this was an extremely taboo move because behind the scenes alliances were never to be shown, especially between a heel and a face, since this would render the gimmicks as fake. Since Hall and Nash left and Shawn was the champion, Triple H was the one who had to take the fall for it. When the interview went to Vince McMahon, he said that Triple H would have gotten fired but he put him on the bottom of the ladder instead. McMahon also said that “you are going to eat plates of sh**, and you are going to like it”. That meant that Triple H would just job out in the mid card for a year, including taking the 1996 King of the Ring winner spot away from him and booking Steve Austin to win it. Triple H did not see any light until he won the Intercontinental Championship in 1997 and, later that year, going on to win the King of the Ring.

Now the attention goes to the feud with Mick Foley. Foley said that he always thought he saw something in him in WCW. Triple H said that Foley brought out the brawling style of him in every way possible. From the steel cage match to the Falls Count Anywhere match, Foley and Triple H considered those matches as their classics.

The next portion is the formation of D-Generation X. Both Hunter and Shawn needed a bodyguard when they just happen to meet Chyna (Joanie Laurer) at a gym around this very time. Vince McMahon was originally against the idea but Shawn and Hunter fought for her. Another thing I did not know was that WCW was about to sign her, which led to Shawn to contact Shane McMahon to convince his dad to give Chyna a chance. That is interesting news but, however, nobody ever mentioned that Chyna and Triple H were dating, too. None of them talked bad about Chyna at all. The next person to talk was The Undertaker. This was the first time in a very long time that Undertaker has been interviewed in a WWE documentary so seeing him in it was worth every word he said. He talks about WCW kicking their ass every week and DX being part of the reason why WWE shifted from the New Generation Era to the Attitude Era. Eventually, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and X-Pac comes into the interviews and talked about DX’s success with the fans, merchandise, the feud with the Nation of Domination and their attempt to raid WCW Nitro. By 1999, Triple H wanted to break away from the group. Billy Gunn was the only one to not agree with that direction because he felt that DX was not ready to break up.

When DX inevitably did meet its demise, Triple H changed his entire look and attitude for his journey to become the next WWE Champion. His first title shot occurred on Summerslam 1999 in a Triple Threat Match involving the current Champion, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Mick Foley. It was wildly rumored that Austin did not want to drop the belt to Triple H on PPV but all 3 of them on the DVD discussed their own version of that rumor. Mick Foley won the belt but, however, Triple H won the belt for the first time the next night on Raw.

A few months later, the storyline of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon started and the next portion of interviews are from Stephanie, Vince and Linda McMahon along with DX, The Big Show and The Undertaker. The McMahon family talked about Triple H and Stephanie dating and that Vince did not allow Stephanie to date the wrestlers at all. However, Linda McMahon knew and let them two secretly date. Once Vince found out, he told them the risks of what could happen and he eventually gave Triple H his blessing. This may have been good but they were now the target of the entire locker room. Both Hunter and Stephanie were aware that all the wrestlers were talking about them but they did not care at all. Footage of their wedding shows from 2003 to end the segment.

The year 2000 also was a great feud between Triple H and The Rock. The Rock talks about the matches they had, including the second ever 60 minute Ironman match at Judgment Day 2000. The Rock then says that Triple H is the best in-ring worker he has ever worked with.

Going into 2001, Hunter talks about him teaming with Steve Austin and capturing the Tag Team, Intercontinental and WWE Championship. Next, we get footage from his first knee injury as Jim Ross and Paul Heyman mentioned that they were really scared for Triple H and that they were both surprised that he actually finished the match. The next footage is from the knee surgery that many WWE fans remember when it first aired on television along with the recovery and rehabilitation period. Now we get to the night Triple H returned from his injury on the first WWE Raw of 2002. Hunter said that he had no idea to how the crowd would react and that he thought the crowd would be silent.

Moving forward to late 2002 to early 2003, we get interviews from Randy Orton and Batista about how they were chosen to be part of Evolution, which consisted of Triple H, Ric Flair, Randy Orton, and Batista. The idea of the group was to have both Orton and Batista to become the future of the WWE. I should mention that the Blu-ray edition has special clips and one of them was from a former WWE Superstar Mark Jindrak. He talks about how he was actually supposed to replace Batista as a member of Evolution but, due to time constraints, it never happened. This portion of the DVD is my favorite but it would have been great if they had talked about their Wrestlemania matches.

Next, we get the feud between Triple H and John Cena. Triple H commented that Cena is one of the most hardest working guys in the locker room and has not wrestled anybody like him before. John Cena says that it was a huge honor wrestling Hunter at Wrestlemania. Cena also feels that Triple H was the hardest opponent he has faced at the time, too.

Right after the Wrestlemania match, the DX reunion begins. The fans loved every single second of it but, however, Shawn Michaels and Triple H kind of disliked it. That goes to show that they’ve matured from those days of pulling pranks, but it was fun times nevertheless.

Triple H now talks about the same knee injury he had in 2001 but, this time, it was on the other knee. It happened in WWE New Year’s Revolution in 2007, which caused him to have to go through another operation.  Triple H was supposed to face John Cena at Wrestlemania 23 for a rematch before he got injured but Shawn Michaels took the spot instead. He returned 7 months later and in 2008, he won the WWE Championship and got drafted to Smackdown. Stephanie McMahon and Vince McMahon felt that Triple H going to Smackdown would help out young talent such as Jeff Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, MVP and more.

Going into 2009 was the feud between Triple H and Randy Orton. During this feud, the entire McMahon family was involved and the real life marriage of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon was put into the feud as well. Triple H said that his match against Randy Orton could have been better, especially since the match between Shawn Michaels and Undertaker overshadowed the main event.

Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and Vince McMahon now talk about Hunter’s duties as the COO of the WWE. They talk about him bringing talent in, training the students, board meetings, and more stuff about the duties in the corporate offices in the WWE.

Then finally, we get closing interviews from Brock Lesnar, Shawn Michaels, Batista, The McMahon family and Undertaker along with closing details about the Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania 28.

MY THOUGHTS OF THE DVD:

If I would have to choose between this DVD and the Mick Foley DVD that came out a few months earlier, I would have to tie them both as the best WWE documentary of the year. Although there were a few things left out, a lot of other features made up for it. The most worthy footage from this DVD is seeing and hearing The Undertaker being interviewed out of character. This was the first time in a long while that The Undertaker has been interviewed for a documentary and it was great to see him being interviewed. The details about Triple H’s relationship with Stephanie McMahon and how he went to the WWE from WCW is very newsworthy for the younger fans that was not aware about any of what is going on behind the scenes along with many of the other interviews as well. I believe that they made Triple H look way too good in those interviews but I do not have a problem with it. For non Triple H fans, it is still worth it to pick it up and watch this. Another fact I want to bring up is that this may be the longest documentary WWE has produced, clocking in at 2 hours and 27 minutes. I give this a thumbs up so go to your video store and add this to your collection.

Follow @julianexcalibur