For many WWE fans, The Rock’s biggest rival was Stone Cold Steve Austin, while Triple H was Shawn Michaels. You can defend both.
But when you look at the trajectory of Triple H and The Rock’s careers inside the square circle, they wouldn’t be what they are without each other.
It may have bonded them over time, but there is no doubt that it was a relationship born out of grudge and jealousy that only grew with the money they were winning together.
The Rock entered WWE at Survivor Series 1996. Standing 6ft 6in and a third generation wrestler following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Grand Chief Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson, President Vince McMahon was always going to have big plans for The Great Un.
Triple H made the jump to WWE from WCW in 1995 after his contract expired and McMahon was impressed with his performance at Starrcade against Alex Wright.
After a disappointing start to life as Connecticut Blue Blood, Triple H befriends Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Shawn Michaels, and Sean Waltman. They had become collectively known as The Kliq and were known to have McMahon’s ear in creative ways.
In early 1997, with the departure of influential Triple H friends Hall and Nash, Rock and Triple H found themselves on a level playing field, fighting to make a name for themselves in the middle of the map. This is where some of the bad blood begins.
In October 1996, a month before Rock’s debut, Triple H won the Intercontinental title. Four months later, Rock beat Triple H for that title despite the crowd not buying what The Rock was selling. He was having trouble recovering and the reactions from the crowd were undeniably bad.
At that time, things really heated up.
Michaels and Bret Hart really hated each other behind the scenes and vied for the WWE title. Rumor has it that Michaels and Triple H disliked The Rock and saw him as a threat to Triple H’s rising position. In fact, they pressured McMahon to have Hart withdraw the IC title from The Rock, but Hart revealed in his autobiography that he refused.
The Hitman loved The Rock and saw that he had enormous potential. While many legends suggest that Triple H and Michaels were trying to bury The Rock, he had a good friend by his side in Hart.
Speaking of refusal, Rock also refused to work with Michaels during this time.
The bitterness is said to have started even before The Rock’s career began as a teenager growing up in Hawaii. Michaels came to work and reportedly said something derogatory about Rock’s promoter grandmother Lia Maivia.
Michaels later landed a superkick on Rock during a segment and grabbed him in the jaw. When told it was too hard behind the scenes, HBK responded by telling Rock, “If you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be in the business.”
This led to Rock crushing Michaels to the ground, but they were said to have been separated before they degenerated.
According to his father, Rocky Johnson, “he almost killed the Heart Break Kid”.
Rock lost the IC belt to Bret’s brother Owen Hart two months later and suffered a serious knee injury in the process, keeping him out until August. Upon his return, he resurfaced as a villain and joined the Nation of Domination.
Back when Rock was on the set Triple H won the King of the Ring in 1997 and the same month Rock returned, D-Generation X consisted of Triple H, Michaels, Chyna and Rick Rude.
Rock was in Nation of Domination with Mark Henry – rightfully the strongest man in the world at the time – D’Lo Brown, Kama Mustafa (later known as The Godfather) and the leader Faarooq.
Henry told a story on Chris Jericho’s podcast where someone was in The Rock’s food and wanted to cheat him into eating it.
“It was different back then,” Henry said. “People put shit in people’s food boxes. Real shit. [It happened] at Dwayne. I seen it happen and people thought, “ Hush, don’t say it, come on the east coast on him. ” No, are you crazy? You put shit in someone’s food. Request [The Rock] about that. He will tell you.
Henry went on to strongly imply that it was the Kliq that was behind the “hill”.
“I had to keep [The Rock] of being killed, ”Henry added,“ because he was going to blow himself up. You know, it was clickable back then. You had the Kliq, the BSK, the whole Puerto Rican crew, everyone was ready. And you bother with one, you bother with everything.
Hart left the company shortly after Rock’s return thanks to the Montreal Screwjob – which starred Michaels and Triple H – but Rock wouldn’t have to deal with DX alone as long as Michaels had also left the company soon. the following April.
After WrestleMania 14, Rock became the leader of The Nation by toppling Faarooq and Triple H took the reins of DX from Michaels, adding X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws. For much of the rest of 1998, the two teams argued.
During this time, The Rock was becoming a real superstar. After his ladder match with Triple H at SummerSlam – which the latter won – Rock was getting huge fan support. This caused him to turn his back on The Nation and go solo there. The Brahma Bull was red for the first time.
Triple H still did well as DX’s babyface leader, but he wasn’t near world title level, and Vince McMahon never saw him in that role, according to Bruce Prichard.
The Rock won his first Survivor Series world title that year – two years after his debut – and the corporate champion was born with Vince McMahon by his side on screen. He would face Steve Austin at WrestleMania 15 and his main event status was solidified.
Triple H didn’t officially break with DX – or the corporate department he joined for a while – until the summer of 1999.
He beat Mankind to his first world title the night after SummerSlam ’99 and it looked like he had officially arrived on the main event scene, somewhere The Rock was firmly in place now.
With Triple H now a dastardly heel and Rock a huge babyface, they were destined to meet again. After Steve Austin had to leave for neck surgery – for which WWE struck him out by taking him down a car – Triple H and The Rock worked together for the world title for the vast majority of 2000, a year WWE raced the streets before Monday Night War Rival, WCW.
Speaking to Bleacher Report ahead of his 25 anniversary with the company, Triple H says that while he and Rock weren’t friends, it was more of a competitive rivalry than hate.
“It’s a funny thing; we weren’t friendly, ”said Triple H.“ I don’t know if I’ve ever had dinner with The Rock or gone out after the show with him or something like that. We were in different circles. But man, my respect for him was amazing. Anytime I heard “Hey, you’re gonna work with Rock” I’d be like “okay. This is going to be awesome. ‘ We would push each other. There was just this mutual respect. But based on our competitive natures, there was also always this intense rivalry.
“I never felt during that time that Rock and I didn’t like each other. But we were uber competitive with each other. There was that competitive nature in everything we did. When you are 20, you are full of yourself. You have to be in this business to be good at what you do.
“There’s a lot of the ‘fuck it up. I’ll do better than that. You know what I mean? “Does he think he can do this?” I can do this“. I remember going to Gold’s Gym once and seeing him on the other side of the gym and he lifts some weight. And I say to myself: “I have to go heavier”. There was just something about him. He always pushed me to want to do more and be better.
Rock would leave WWE full-time in 2003 to pursue a career in Hollywood where he has since become the highest-paid actor in the business with his films grossing billions around the world.
Triple H is semi-retired and now runs NXT, the developmental promotion of WWE for all intents and purposes, but has become a third brand.
Now a healthy respect and love has grown between the two. Probably because they both managed to walk away and be successful in other areas without choking. Could this have happened inside WWE for over a decade? Maybe, but no guarantee.
However, the two men know that without the other, they would not be where or who they are today.