Why is it laughable to you? There is no doubt in my mind that he IS one of the best ever. He's not THE best, but he is at least in the top 15. So the real question is would he be considered even greater.

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I think that where Triple H doesn't compare to others is in getting the best out of lesser wrestlers and also making guys look good in defeat. If you look at the list I posted, he made Jericho look great in defeat, and hasn't done that much, if at all since. However, even pre-quad tear, he never really had good matches with wrestlers who wern't great themselves. The list of talent he has worked with is staggering, and as much as Triple H was good in the matches, working with that calibre of wrestler is bound to help a LOT.

Most wrestlers don't have the luxury of wrestling such names as Foley, Austin, Jericho, Angle, Benoit, The Rock, The Undertaker, Cena etc, most of whom were in their primes, over the course of a career.

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This is a really good question, man. I will come out right now and say that I am not an HHH fan in the least. The only thing that can even attest to his alleged greatness is the number of title reigns that he has had, and I would argue that he'll probably be one of the primary reasons why, in the future, title reigns won't be considered a criterion in deciding whether or not someone is a professional wrestling icon.

Undoubtedly, HHH had a great run from 1999-2001; he was the best heel in the business at this time. But, had he not left, he would not have had the momentum from re-debuting that allowed him to take his fixed place in WWE's main-event scene. Of course, you could argue that his relationship with Stephanie McMahon accounts for his rise to the top after his quad injury, but I refuse to go there. In the end, I honestly don't know what would have happened to HHH had he not had the quad tear. But, I think it was definitely a boon to his career.

More than anything, I wonder how the business would of changed had Hunter not gotten hurt. Hunter was originally penciled in to being the main attraction for the WCW brand under WWE control. Once he got hurt and WWE had objections from TNN, they gave up on running WCW as their own brand. Looking back at that time period, I can see Chris Jericho not receiving the big push he got. In the long run, it would probably have been better for him since his sudden depush ruined him for years in my eyes.

Without turning this into a Triple H hate post, he was never the same after his first knee surgery. Outside of his Summerslam match, I can't recall a good 2002 singles PPV match from him. Infact, the same could be said for Wrestlemania 19 in 2003. While he did improve in 2004 (Mostly because of Chris Benoit), he never reached the quality he set in 2000. To give out a rare compliment, it's pretty difficult to be that good again.

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Since when are matches the only basis for whether someone was great or not? I'm not trying to pick on you or anything but Triple H has always been considered pretty damn good on the mic as well.. as a heel, not so much his face stuff..

Anyway, if we're only talking about matches, I have to agree that he's never been the same really since the first injury but he was great back then and he would go on to have many memorable matches after that... just not as good. Horrorfan_1986 brought up 2002, I think you have to give Triple H a lot of credit for what he did in the elimination chamber match as well.. RVD damn near killed him early in the match.. and he kept trucking along and went the distance with Shawn. I think that's an amazing performance by him.. they continued to go through their spots and everything. It's not a story most people talk about these days, but it shows how much he loves wrestling, performing, and putting on a good show.

I could name some other match post-2002 that have been fairly decent as well.. many people regard the triple threat with him, Benoit, and HBK at WM as one of the better Mania matches of all time and their rematch for Backlash wasn't bad either. Triple H also had a cage match with Flair that I thought was good, another match on RAW with Flair, and then him and Flair had a decent Last Man Standing match. None of it is MOTY stuff or anything but to sell him short on those would be a mistake.

I also disagree with the notion that he doesn't make people look good in defeat. He made Taka look brilliant.. he made Maven look like a million bucks on an episode of HEAT, there's others..

You're right. Triple H is funny when he's just being himself.. but when it's scripted, it's awful. He probably doesn't write the stuff, but still..

I used to love his drawn out heel promo work in 2000. Him and Steph were great together. His shit in Evolution was good too but I got the feeling like sometimes they'd just throw him out there to waste 15 minutes because they didn't know what else to do.