“Hell No’ – Jim Ross Hits Out At Rumours Triple H Sandbagged Top WCW Star

Jim Ross has slammed suggestions that Triple H once set out to sabotage a former top WCW star by “sandbagging” them during a bout.

In late 2002, Scott Steiner joined WWE and immediately set his sights on World Heavyweight Champion, Triple H. The two men met in something of an ill-fated match at the 2003 Royal Rumble with the bout ending in a lacklustre disqualification.

Speaking on his Grilling JR podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross refuted long-held rumours that Triple H was attempting to make his opponent look poor during the bout but admits the DQ finish did nobody any favours:

“No. Hell no. Triple H is not gonna go out there and have a stinker on purpose. No, look, it’s gonna sound bad. He’s a professional. So he, his ego, and I say that in a good way. He’s got a lot of pride. He’s not gonna go out there and stink up the joint on purpose. It’s just he couldn’t do any more with Scotty. And they needed to call some audibles and one of those audibles would have been to shorten the match.”

“The second audible would have been if Triple H went over. I don’t know that the DQ thing, who did it save? You know what, I think DQ finishes are so overused, they don’t mean as much as maybe they did in a previous generation, or you know, same guys wrestling a lot and territory, you know, type thing where you’re in the same market a lot, things like that. A lot of audibles could have been called. But that wasn’t how it went down, the two things that stand out, the match went too long, and HHH should have gone over. Simple as that, in my opinion.”

If you use any quotes from this article please credit original source and then h/t with a link back to TJRWrestling for the transcription.