Former Writer Says Triple H Was Against Push Of Popular WWE Star
A former writer recalled when Triple H was against a popular superstar becoming WWE Champion.
As a 14-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion who has been married to Vince McMahon’s daughter Stephanie since 2003, Paul “Triple H” Levesque has had a lot of power within WWE long before he was named the Chief Content Officer in the summer of 2022.
In his current role running WWE, Triple H gets to call the shots in terms of booking the main roster shows like Raw, Smackdown, and Premium Live Events. Triple H also oversees the talent relations department, so his fingerprints are on everything that happens in WWE on screen and behind the scenes as well.
During his run as an active WWE superstar from the mid-1990s until the late 2010s, Triple H was known as one of the greatest champions in company history.
Freddie Prinze Jr. is a successful actor and producer who had success at a young age in Hollywood and didn’t need to take a WWE writer’s job, but he did it in the late 2000s because of his passion for pro wrestling.
While appearing on The Masked Man Show, Freddie recalled his WWE run in the late 2000s when he was pushing for Jeff Hardy to become a first-time WWE Champion in 2008. After starting in WWE about a decade earlier as a tag team wrestler, Jeff finally became WWE Champion at Armageddon 2008 in a match involving Edge and Triple H. Based on his popularity, Hardy as WWE Champion made a lot of sense, but his well-known issues with drugs and alcohol prevented it from happening.
When recalling that time period, Prize admitted Triple H didn’t like the idea.
“Hunter and I, we didn’t get on great when I worked there. I was the guy that did the Jeff Hardy to champion storyline, and he was not [for] that. And he was right. Jeff wasn’t in a position in his life to be the WWE World Champion in a publicly traded company, based on the life choices that Jeff was making at the time.”
Was Triple H Right About Jeff Hardy As WWE Champion?
That initial WWE Title reign for Jeff Hardy lasted just over one month when Edge got the title back due to Matt Hardy shockingly attacking his brother Jeff. Prinze would go on to admit that Triple H made the right call.
“In hindsight, [Triple H] was right.”
Jeff Hardy went on to become a three-time WWE World Champion (WWE Title once, World Title twice) while Triple H is a 14-time WWE World Champion, which is tied with Randy Orton for the third most of all-time behind Ric Flair and John Cena.