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Chronicle of Triple H’s face, heel, and complete character turns in both WCW and WWE

It’s that time again. Time to chronicle another wrestler’s heel and face turns. Starting next week, this will have a more consistent schedule of every Monday at Midnight eastern time. How this will work is that the poll will have 6-7 wrestlers based on suggestions from you all and the winner will be done that week. For today’s feature, it’s time to play the game and bow down to the king, it’s Triple H. This also includes his runs as Terra Ryzin’ and Jean-Paul Levesque in WCW. Let’s get started

1. Began his career as Terror Rising, which was changed to Terra Ryzin’ because 90s, starting out as a villain (Heel)

2. Redebuted as snobby Frenchman Jean-Paul Levesque, remaining heel, but because it’s a character change, it counts as a turn. He teamed with my boy Lord Steven Regal and left WCW in 1995 after they refused to let him go solo. (Heel)

3. Debuted in WWF in 1995 as The Connecticut Blueblood Hunter Hearst Hemsley, which was the exact same character as Levesque, but not French. Later changed again to co found DX with Shawn Michaels, but staying as a bad guy (Heel)

4. Slowly turned towards the light side in 1998 and began feuding with The Rock’s Nation is Domination alongside DX, his first proper turn (Face)

5. Joined The Corporation in 1999, switching from tights to trunks and cutting his hair, during this he joined up with Stephanie McMahon to form the McMahon-Hemsley faction and began calling himself The Game, a nickname meant for Owen Hart before his tragic death. During this time, his theme changed from My Time to the greatest theme of all time, Motorhead’s The Game. IIn 2001, he severely tore his quad in a tag match with Steve Austin against Benoit and Jericho. (Heel)

6. Returned to a massive ovation on January 7, 2002, won the royal rumble, dumped Stephanie, and defeated Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania X-8, all the while a hero (Face)

7. During what was supposed to be a DX reunion in July 2002, pedigreed Shawn Michaels to kick off the Reign of Terror. This lasted from July 2002- April 2005 and during it, Tri was champion for over 600 days and beat every challenger until Batista came along and ended the reign. The run of HHH dominance combined with his insistence on long matches, including an over 40 minute hell in a Cell match against Shawn Michaels that was dirt boring, caused fans to despise HHH until his next turn, and even then, some still hate him to this day. That has cooled since NXT’s rise began however. (Heel)

8. Reformed DX in 2006 to combat Mr. McMahon and the Spirit Squad, also included an awesome feud with Rated RKO, that I’ll full on admit I loved. Stayed face for technically seven years, we’ll get back to this with what I’ll consider a technical heel turn in a bit, winning multiple world titles and starting several notable feuds with Randy Orton, John Cena, and CM Punk. While this doesn’t count as one, I feel the need to mention Tri beating Punk at night of champions 2011 as a technical turn that doesn’t count for the numbers because it was intended to bury Punk, it didn’t work (Face)

9. Turned heel at Summerslam 2013 by hitting Daniel Bryan with a pedigree after Bryan beat John Cena, starting The Authority. This faction dominated the company for four years and feuded with Bryan, the Shield, Dean Ambrose, John Cena, Randy Orton, and even after the dissolution of the stable in 2016, Triple h and Steph remained authority figures in the background, feuding against the likes of Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman for a night (remember when that was going to go somewhere and didn’t?) and Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey. (Heel)

10. Technically, on NXT TV, Triple H is a babyface. He doesn’t interfere and is there merely to hype up the crowd for shows, so I’ll consider this a face run on NXT only. (Face on NXT TV only)

11. Begrudgingly, the Internet considers DX being attacked by the Brothers of Destruction a face turn, even though no one was a face in their feud. I’ll count it under protest. (Face)

This number is a lot lower than I expected and also was a pain in the ass due to NXT and the long stretches between turns. Comment any suggestions and talk about the turns. See you on Monday for whoever is next

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.