- Oh, through the plate glass window!
- Oh no! I'm so glad you showed this clip!
- I still get goosebumps from this one.
Yeah, that's my favorite Triple H moment of all time.
- (Michael) Again!
- Ooh, the Undertaker!
- (Michael) Again! - Oh!
- Oh yeah, here we go, Pedigree! Pedigree!
- (Michael) Pedigree! (bell rings)
- Hunter and I have always enjoyed being out there with one another.
Like, it's a real life, bona fide friendship
that has been there for 25 years.
- (Michael) Sweet Chin Music! Into a Pedigree!
- Oh! (bell rings)
- (Renee) What a last match!
- Triple H and Undertaker go back a long ways,
in one way, that was just a huge end of an era
to know that they would never face each other again one on one.
- (Renee) Last time ever! - Oh man.
- They're so legendary,
they don't even need to come back to do these matches,
but you know that when they do wanna come back,
they wanna give it their all,
and kinda show the younger people like we still got it.
- Just thinking how much fun he must be having with Shawn.
Obviously kicking the Undertaker's butt,
but just being in there with your best friend, causing havoc.
- Oh man! (laughs)
- Oh! - (laughs) Yeah, remember that!
- I remember this! - Ah!
- This was crazy.
- It's really a precursor to a lot of the cinematic matches
we've seen recently in WWE pay-per-view
because of the pandemic and stuff like that.
- Get him, baby!
Oh, through the plate glass window!
- It kinda brought it back to the Attitude Era,
that type of vibe, so we hadn't really seen anything like that
in a long time.
- I think it was after Randy had given me his DDT,
at, you know, off the second rope, and had kissed me
in front of a handcuffed Triple H.
So this was just a really fun story, you know, I guess,
depending on whose perspective.
And you know, really set up in Triple H versus Randy Orton.
- Triple H shows up in my backyard, we're gonna have a problem,
I'll tell ya that, he'll be the one going through my window.
I got a pregnant woman in here, dang it!
No danger, alright?
- (Michael) Wait a minute, wait a minute, no!
- (Jerry) What? - (Michael) No!
- Oh no! I'm so glad you showed this clip!
WrestleMania 15 in Philadelphia was the very first wrestling event
that I ever watched. That event was the reason
that I became a pro wrestling fan in the first place.
- (Michael) He's turned his back on X-Pac!
- Shame, shame, shame.
- (Michael) Right over Shane! - (Jerry) What?
- This, he wasn't scared to be a bad guy.
The ultimate bad guy.
- Triple H is such a good bad guy, like you wanna hate him at all times.
- I think I was 10 years old at that time.
I was very angry at you, Triple H.
- I think that's really when Triple H hit that next level.
He went from being the leader of DX to just a whole different animal.
- He had the passion and the desire and the drive to feel
like he was good enough and he deserved his opportunity,
and that clip you just showed was sort of in that era for him.
(crowd cheers)
- Oh, this is when DX, DX gets back together.
- (Jim) And Michaels, bad knee and all!
- Coming in for the save!
- Oh, I love the Spirit Squad!
- (Jim) It appears that we have just seen...
- Yes!
- (Jim) The reuniting of DX! (crowd cheers)
- I know in the eyes of a lot of WWE fans like
ugh, they've done 10,000 of those, but that was actually, you know,
the real reunion, sort of, of D-Generation X
from it sort of going dormant, certainly between he and I,
from 1997 into the 2000s.
- You wanna do this? Do you wanna do this?
- Let's go! - Yeah, let's go!
- Suck it!
- Me and Dawks have like that same mentality.
I know exactly what they was possibly feeling like.
I remember the first time me and Dawks reunited
for like WrestleMania, so we know, we know!
- For me personally, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this,
but hey, when I was a kid,
I know how many detentions I got
for you know, telling people to suck it!
- I'm in a group, the Undisputed Era, and a lot of people
see a lot of similarities between the Undisputed Era and D-Generation X,
and that's on purpose.
When I think of like my Mount Rushmore or my top influential wrestlers,
Shawn Michaels and Triple H are always at the top of that list.
- When we got together as D-Generation X,
it was something that was just an absolute blast to be a part of,
because you knew you were doing something very different,
and very outside of the norm within the wrestling business,
and it, people either really loved it,
but a lot of the traditionalists really hated it.
And that, believe it or not, was an extremely exciting place to be.
- (Jim) Zumhoff showing his competitive spirit here!
- Oh! - Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
- Helmsley, oh!
- (Jim) Hip lock attempt and oh my!
- Ooh, nice, a little RKO action from Triple H, there we go.
- (Howard) Hunter Hearst Helmsley! - (Announter) He is, yeah,
nobody likes him he's so smug and arrogant.
- (laughs) I mean, half our roster don't even know
Triple H is for Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
- That's the most amazing thing to me, 'cause they've heard the name
Triple H so long, they don't even know what Hunter Hearst Helmsley means.
- That's crazy, look how young he looks.
- Oh my goodness! With no facial hair.
- Yeah, the bow, the bow, oh my goodness,
everything about that reeks mid-90s WWE,
that's so great.
- Love the smugness, it's so good.
Like, you can't teach that.
- That is so fascinating to me, to see him as Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
Such an evolution of the character from where he started in WWE
to where he ended up.
- (Hunter) We stand now at your door!
- Oh, this is priceless. - (Hunter) Knocking on that door!
- I knew, I knew!
It's the whole deal, it's all of 'em, there you go!
- (Hunter) And fight the war!
- It's like the bullies on the playground
that you love to hate.
- This was amazing!
For DX to show up at WCW's door,
I was like what is happening?
- If it hadn't have been for characters or groups like DX,
when there was so much competition in the business,
maybe the Monday Night Wars, they might have not won,
and with guys that really clicked, (laughs)
and they just ran with it.
- It was another side of the aggressive attitude,
between the brands and in this rating war
that really catapulted wrestling to another atmosphere,
another solar sphere.
♪ (tense music) ♪
- Ooh!
- One of his best entrances.
- Every entrance matters because he's gotta get
everybody who's tuning in and take them on a journey.
- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I see some familiar faces there.
- That's Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks,
all right there.
- I was shaking doing this, dude.
I thought I was gonna fall off, I was like do not fall off.
Do not puke.
He legit told all of us
that we were going to have this moment of our own one day,
and just what, a year and a half later two years later,
we're all debuting on Raw, we're all like champions.
- It was so cool when he told us in the gear,
and being a part of it.
We were like this is our biggest WrestleMania moment ever!
The fact that now I've had my four or five WrestleManias,
just at that moment, like, I didn't have to do anything.
How does he do this?
- Isn't he so handsome?
- He is the King of Kings,
but he's also the undisputed king of entrances.
- I just remember like, just seeing that entrance
and going like yo, this what Daniel Bryan going against?
After all this time, he's still at this high caliber
and still playing like, performing at the best level!
- (Jerry) Oh, J.R.!
- That was the return, yep! - (Jerry) This is it!
- The loudest reaction I've ever heard.
- This is my personal favorite Triple H moment.
- Still get goosebumps from this one.
- You know you get some goosebumps when you return, dad.
- I can't imagine what that sounded like there,
to be backstage or to be him.
And that's gotta feel good as a performer.
- People are next level excited about you,
if when your music plays, and everyone screams really loud.
But then you actually walk out the curtain,
and they scream louder.
- To me, that's my favorite Triple H moment of all time.
- What an incredible moment to be a part of.
It was just a really powerful night,
and such a well deserved, mutual respect between
a performer and their fans.
- (Jerry) Kurt, turn around, you didn't win yet!
Turn around Kurt, you didn't win!
- I love Kurt Angle, God.
- Yes!
- (Howard) The winner of the Royal Rumble Match.
- Hell yeah. - (Howard) Triple H!
- I wanna win a Royal Rumble, ugh!
- Winning the Royal Rumble, in our company,
is just such a big deal as a whole,
like just being one of, in history,
one of the Royal Rumble winners, you can never take that away.
- He had literally just returned.
Paul was the first professional athlete
to ever come back from quad tear.
To have that drive where you say
no one's ever done it before, I'm gonna be the first,
and when he won the Royal Rumble just a couple weeks later
from that return, after being gone for a year,
it was a moment that I think everyone will remember.
- (Announcer) And Sable's, ah!
- Marc Mero!
- Oh, Marc Mero.
- (Vince) You might call it a perfect hoax, I can't believe!
- He looks like a baby.
- I love hearing my dad, "it's a perfect hoax!"
Playing off of Mr. Perfect, of course,
one of my husband's all-time favorites.
- Was that his first title win?
I know the feeling of winning your first ever championship,
and it's like the greatest feeling in the whole wide world.
- I'm curious to know if not only he,
but if other people thought he would go on to be
literally one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time.
- (Jim) For God sakes.
- Oh yes, the turn.
- Stephanie! - (Jim) What?
By God!
- This is so juicy.
- (Jim) What is this?
- Young and babyfaced Stephanie.
It's so cute now, but at the time, it was very devious.
- That's what WWE's been great, always been great doing
is creating all these twists, this unpredictability,
when no one knows what's going on,
and Hunter's been involved in a lot of great storylines.
- That is when I turned on my father
and joined forces with the evil Triple H.
And that was the moment that started it all, right?
Here we are married with three kids,
and if that moment never happened, who knows where we would be today?
- (Michael) Mankind in the ring, Pedigree time!
- Ooh, this is a big one! - (Michael) Triple H!
- Nothing like winning your first WWE Championship.
- Say no more, fam. - Say no more!
- Triple H got you!
- (Jerry) Triple H has realized his dream!
It's all about Triple H! - Awesome.
- That's the first one, right?
As a performer, that's what everybody gets in this stuff for,
is to be able to have that moment, and you never forget your first one.
- That was the beginning of everything.
The run that he went on, with being at the top of WWE
for as long as he did was unprecidented.
- It was a slog, you know? It was a journey.
It didn't happen overnight, it wasn't a success.
It was one thing, one story, good story,
one victory after another, after another feud,
it's definitely been a cool,
unbelievable road and journey for Triple H,
and now being the head of NXT, a lot of great memories there.
- All these clips just go to show you
that starting out as Hunter Hearst Helmsley,
and seeing where he is now.
You never know, you gotta keep grinding,
you gotta keep hustling, you gotta keep working hard.
- So this year marks the 25th anniversary
of Triple H in the WWE.
Can you talk a little bit about
what Triple H has meant for you personally?
- Oh, personally for me, Triple H is, you know,
he's been there through it all.
If it weren't for Triple H,
there would be no Seth Rollins as you know him today.
- I kinda owe my whole career to him,
because I wouldn't have the opportunity if he didn't care.
- Paul, I mean, there, and, Hunter,
I never know what to call him
when I'm talking about him as a performer,
you know, it's so funny in our business,
everybody has so many different names, except me.
He has such a big heart, he's so smart.
He's really, really smart, he's funny.
He's handsome, he's the most incredible father, he's a leader.
He is, he's the total package, he is my dream come true.
- I've been able to make an awful, you know, wonderful living,
one, doing what I love to do,
and then getting to do it side by side with your best friend.
That is absolutely an unbelievable thing.
- So Triple H has been an instrumental part
in mentoring many superstars since he started,
and heavily involved in what the NXT brand is today.
So can you talk a bit about his impact on NXT?
- NXT is definitely his vision. - Yes!
- He's the reason NXT is successful as it is today.
- He loves this business, there's no doubt about it.
He's very passionate about this business,
and if he sees something in anybody,
even the ones who don't have the most natural talent,
but have a lot of hunger, he'll do everything he can
to help them succeed.
- He didn't look at a guy like me and say you're too small.
He said you're talented,
and I'm gonna let talented people be talented
and I'm gonna give you a stage, and he gave us a stage,
and for that, I mean, I owe him a lot.
- One of the stories that doesn't get told enough
about Triple H is how he has always been
a proponent for the women in our business.
He would fight, you know, for Chyna
to have a lot of the opportunities that she deserved, quite frankly.
He started training the women same as the men,
and that's what led to the Give Divas A Chance hashtag
that ultimately changed the entire landscape in WWE
for our female performers.
- If you'd have told either one of us
that 25 years later we would be getting to,
getting the opportunity to work with each other again side by side,
doing something like NXT, I mean, we'd have been tickled pink.
I feel blessed we're getting to do it.
He stuck by me every step of the way,
and that's why, again, you know,
it's why I stick by him every step of the way.
- So finally, if Triple H were watching this right now,
what would you want to say to him?
- Tell him not to get a big head,
I'll still knock the [censored] out of him.
That WrestleMania victory was a fluke, you can tell him that.
It's a fluke!
- Oh, just thanks.
He's always been very real with me, and very honest with me,
and I appreciate that.
- I hope he realizes how influential he really has been,
and how much he motivates people.
He's an incredible example of guys who lead by example,
and me and so many others are very thankful to work for him.
- Hunter, maybe one day me and Candice
will ride down on motorcycles, and it will be awesome,
but in all seriousness, thank you for being you man.
I owe my career to you, I do, me and Candice both.
Like thank you so much for taking a chance on us.
- I'm forever grateful
for the confidence he instilled in my dad,
and gave back to him,
and just giving me the opportunity in NXT, which changed my life.
- Because of him, I'm given the opportunity to do what I love
every single week,
it just feels so good to feel kinda equal in this business,
and it's because of him for giving me the opportunity,
and giving all of us the opportunity and that time.
And he's incredible, and I'm so thankful.
- This honestly doesn't happen without him having our back
and beliving in us, and having the faith in us
to do what we've been able to do.
- Thank you very much for
taking me through my entire childhood.
The dedication to the craft,
and always believing in myself and Dawks.
- Triple OG, OG Triple H. Happy 25th, bro.
- All I know is it's been a blast,
and I look forward to, you know, both of us living another 25 years,
and (laughs) continuing to hang out and have fun together in the future.
- I couldn't be more proud of you, I love you so much.
You deserve every celebration, 25 years of this iconic career,
and I can't wait for the next 25!
- Thanks for watching this episode of WWE Superstars React.
- Thanks for watching like a legit boss.
- Hey guys, it's Sierra, Producer here at FBE.
Thank you so much to all the WWE Superstars
who shot this episode with us.
If you wanna see some of our other episodes with WWE Superstars,
just hit up those links down below. Bye guys!