Yes, a portion of this feud involved the two of them oiling themselves up and flexing dramatically at one another. This is what happens when you let bodybuilders book your shit.
ANATOMY OF A DISASTER: TRIPLE H vs. SCOTT STEINER:
-It’s time! Maybe the most infamous disastrous match of all time, the horrendous, endless HHH/Steiner Rumble match! This one is largely famous for Steiner using the exact same overhead suplex again and again during the course of the bout, to the point where the fans turned on it big-time, and it’s gone into history as one of the worst matches of all time. The huge stage (with months of build) makes it even worse.
Now, I’ve heard rumors Hunter deliberately sandbagged the match and went out of his way to make Scott look bad. Kevin Kelly has made that accusation in a shoot. Someone added that Lance Storm said “Any of the boys could see that”. However, I can’t find any support for that from Scott himself- only that Scott derides Hunter bringing in everyone from WCW and beating them to sate his own ego. There ARE comments Scottie said about Ric Flair doing that in their match in the early ’90s, which Lance has supported, so I’m wondering if people are equating one with the other. The rumors about this continue, though, with even Jim Ross having to comment on them.
I started doing this trying to find if I could see evidence of HHH sandbagging it, and also to detect exactly what’s wrong with the match (I mean, aside from the obvious stuff). The tricky thing here is that Hunter probably has the single worst instincts of any wrestler at his level ever- this is a man who tried to get the motherfucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK over as a big move in the year of our Lord 2003. How the hell am I supposed to tell when he’s sucking ON PURPOSE? Also, never mind that Steiner had “drop foot syndrome” (a nerve disorder that prevents you from lifting your foot off the ground when you try walking- note that for later) making him almost immobile, to the point where having a good match would test even the best workers. Of which HHH was not.
But I may be biased- this era of wrestling was so bad that if HHH saved a boatload of puppies from certain death, I’d still be like “Yeah, but that 2002-04, dude”.
THE STAGE: WWE Royal Rumble (Jan. 2003)
THE PERFORMERS:
Triple H: Hunter was clearly protected and pushed right from his WWF debut as Greenwich snob Hunter Hearst-Helmsley. He was punished for a few months after the infamous “Curtain Call” incident, something that seems to have given him a lifelong persecution complex and desire to protect himself at all costs. He finally got the main event push the office wanted for him in the Attitude Era, and to be fair, he quickly earned it, putting in his best work as a performer. But after a brutal quadricep injury brought out by sheer coincidence (oh hey did you know that years of steroid abuse can cause muscle tendons and fibers to rupture? CRAZY THAT), he returned bloated and overweight, and was slapped back in the same position- one now uncontested, as all the Main Eventers above him (Rock, Austin, Foley) largely left. And so we’re early into the “Reign of Terror”- a dreaded time in which HHH somehow found ways to avoid doing jobs to Kane, Booker T & Rob Van Dam until the time a new generation of guys- Cena, Orton & Batista- were ready for the next level and so he “magnanimously” started doing jobs so the main eventers of the future would look back on him with respect, “owing” him.
But again, I’m biased.
Scott Steiner: Much was thought of Scott Steiner right from his debut- his goliath physique and ridiculous athleticism made him seem like the greatest wrestler ever, especially if you were a young kid impressed with MOVEZ- his matches didn’t so much have a flow as they were a never-ending perpetual motion of giant suplexes and guys being thrown around with reckless abandon. People clamored for a Scottie solo push for years, but he was hesitant to leave his less-talented brother Rick behind and split up the Steiner Brothers team, but WCW finally bit the bullet in the late ’90s, right around when the WWF turned the tide in the Monday Night Wars… and Scottie started losing his mobility, as years of injuries (and HOLY SHIT levels of steroid abuse) robbed his body of its athletic potential.
His charisma and mic skills, capped off by a wild, unpredictable personality (in real life, too) made up a lot of this difference, and he was a legit main eventer, albeit in a gutted WCW nobody watched. But now he was finally in WWE, and was immediately pushed into a World Title feud… but as a WCW guy who was kinda maybe sorta a threat to the most powerful wrestler in the entire company. Oh and he has drop foot syndrome: “Foot drop (also called drop foot) happens when you can’t raise the front part of your foot due to weakness or paralysis of the muscles that lift it” is the description I’m getting from Doctor Google.
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
TRIPLE H (w/ Ric Flair) vs. SCOTT STEINER:
* Scott & Hunter had an infamously bad feud leading up to this, including a “Bodybuilding Competition” that is every homoerotic joke about male bodybuilding turned up to eleven. Like, they were jumping in front of each other aggressively flexing their oily muscles in each other’s direction. At least HHH was made to look like a boob frequently during the build-up (at one point being beaten up in his undies) and repeatedly backing down to put over his fear of Steiner. HHH has his physique mostly back to normal around this time, actually- ripped muscles and fairly toned abs with less of the bloat he came back from injury with. He’s in red trunks, while Scott’s in black tights. Ripped to shreds but with that weird “tit gap” between his pecs. Also the Superman logo on his gear, which must have cost WWE some scratch.
They have a big stand-off to start (a lot of the feud was them going nose-to-nose, which I’m sure HHH, noticeably two inches taller and with more all-over mass, enjoyed), but HHH loses a slugfest- notably he’s able to shift his feet during punches while Steiner’s remain firmly planted- his condition makes lifting his feet almost impossible, so he’s just moving his giant-sized upper body only. The physique and the stiff legs make him look like a blown-up He-Man figure, except those have moving shoulders and hips. HHH goes down twice and then getting press-slammed (note that they do this difficult spot early), and Scott hits a lumbering clothesline on the floor and HHH is obviously working things to make this look decent, even though the crowd doesn’t care at all (the heel champ gets press-slammed and they barely lit up at all). Suplex back into the ring and Scott works the back, hitting a terrible crab and no-selling the facecrusher- HHH gouges out of a bearhug, but eats an overhead belly-to-belly for two! Flair saves HHH from the Steiner Recliner (camel clutch) in a spot called by Hunter. Steiner charges into a boot for his first bump of the match and goes into the stairs.
HHH starts a slow beatdown, helped by Flair (Scott is so immobile he can barely flail his arms to sell Flair choking him with his jacket- he practically sleeps through the spot, circling his arms a couple of times and doesn’t even grab for his throat- a major Vince pet peeve), and gets another neckbreaker after each dodges shots. HHH then calls a Pedigree-to-slingshot into the corner spot, and walks into our second belly-to-belly (calling ’em BTBs to save space now, lol). This match is starting to suck instead of just being generic- it’s just too slow. Scott’s spending a lot of time on the mat by this point, at one point even falling over on his own in an iconic spot of the match- just slumps down, straight as a board, into the ropes, like he realized he was tumbling due to exhaustion and “sold” to make it look okay. Scott has an agonized look on his face doing nearly EVERYTHING, even his own offense.
They do a tombstone reversal spot of all things, HHH catching Scott coming down with… that was obviously held like a Diamond Cutter but Scottie spun like a neckbreaker so it looked bad. HHH looks annoyed with a kickout and then calls a vertical suplex but leaps off the second rope into BTB#3! Scott with two clotheslines, a backdrop and BTB#4-6 as the crowd starts to turn on this by the third one in a row as they realize that Scott has NOTHING ELSE. Scott slams Hunter’s head into the turnbuckles a few times (HHH has to do basically all of it) and hits BTB#7 (a turning one this time) for two, but picks HHH up for his butterfly bomb and drops the guy on his own legs as he falls back early in another embarrassing spot. He does the courtesy “damn, you okay?” cover for two and runs into an elbow, but gets a superplex for two in what turns out to be the biggest spot of the match.
HHH bails and walks out with Flair and the belt, but Scott nails them both with a charge and they go tumbling over each other- Flair distracts Scottie with his “outraged” manic act and HHH readies the belt-shot, but Scott grabs it and “nails” him (HHH has to sell Scott slowly pushing it towards him). HHH blades and goes into stuff, but OH GOD it’s BTB#8 in the ring and the boos just get louder and louder. DO SOMETHING ELSE! They have another big boring brawl on the floor, Scott picking up a chair and then thinking better of it and does pushups at HHH as they’re killing all sorts of time and doing nothing. Flair tries to get the match called off due to the cut, then HHH dumps the ref to get DQ’d, but Hebner teases doing so before refusing, and Scott blocks a punch to Earl for BTB#9, getting two. HHH kicks him in the nuts using Flair’s distraction for the same. So then HHH just grabs his trusty sledgehammer, and nails Scott in the gut with it, and Earl finally calls for the Disqualification at (17:00).
The fans boo that out of the building, and HHH readies an overhand shot, but Earl saves him and Scott blocks the next try, and gives him THE HAND WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER BEHIND IT, then doing so to Flair, and hits the Steiner Recliner to “send the fans home happy”. And by “happy” I mean “they boo the shit out of him when he drapes the belt over HHH’s beaten body and poses”.
haha OH GOD this match. So the opening 6 minutes isn’t great and kinda heatless for a World Title match, but is at least fine enough- Steiner is doing this thing where his lower body is static and only moves his upper body, making his strikes look way weaker than they should for such a roided man. HHH was good enough to take big back bumps off of all that, so you could say he was carrying things. Buuuuuuuuuut then it goes on and on and HHH is 100% calling it in the ring (not only is he the champion and booker in Scott’s first return match so would obviously be in that role anyways), and clearly walks in to belly-to-belly after belly-to-belly. They KNEW that was the only move Steiner could do and called it like that over and over again! Just take a GERMAN once in a while, you know?
So if HHH has a fault here, it’s mostly in going “Yeah, let’s have a 17 minute match” with a ultra-injured, immobile, untested opponent (Scott hadn’t really wrestled at all leading up to this, as he couldn’t work)- he was maybe the most powerful wrestler ever not to actually run his own territory at this point, so he could have ABSOLUTELY put his foot down and said “Let’s do 12 minutes, tops” or called it early. Also he’s at fault for calling a shitty match that was boring, plodding and had no flow to it- that’s on him. Granted Benoit or Shawn in their prime could probably not get more than *** out of this version of Scott Steiner, but still. And like, the entire second half of this match is just them fucking around outside the ring and doing nothing of importance.
Rating: DUD (not only is the match completely boring, it falls apart after 6 minutes then gets WORSE and ends on a fuck finish)
Y’know, I distinctly remember like 20+ belly-to-bellies, which shows you what memory of horrifying matches does to people. There were “only” nine.
The Fallout: Scott Steiner’s reputation was pretty much ruined by this match- the crowd booed it out of the building and it was a humiliating display, and worst of all… Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit had a ***** match immediately following it! Like, how could you have possibly shit on two guys more than running an all-timer World Title bout back-to-back with this atrocity? The Steiner feud went on another month, ending in another failed shot by Scottie at the next PPV, and the company allegedly “gave up” on him after that (WONDER WHY?). He was promptly threaded into the midcard, feuding with random dudes, flexing next to Stacy Keibler and stuff like that, but he was never a big name again. He went to TNA and kinda/sorta saved his rep with goofy-ass promos and his weird charisma, but he was cooked as a worker.
HHH’s reputation wasn’t great from this, either- his “Forced Epic” mannerisms were rarely more apparent than when trying to get marathon matches out of slugs like this, so even though it was clear that Scott stank it up, Hunter wasn’t blameless, and this helped juice the fan notion that he was washed up and no good. It would take a LOT of work from Shawn Michaels to get great matches out of Hunter (and even some of those attempts were garbage), and those were off and on- and the remainder of 2003 would mostly see HHH beating a never-ending run of guys who seemed hot and ready to get to the next level… before ultimately losing to Hunter on PPV.
Mitigating Factors: Scott Steiner’s drop foot syndrome means he can’t lift his legs much, so a lot of these strikes being “Scott stands still and moves only his torso” shots are bad beacuse of that. HHH is good enough to bounce around from those strikes to save them, but can only do so much. Steiner is also unbelievably cooked physically, with his muscle mass and wear & tear creating a nearly immobile opponent- HHH has to essentially work with an action figure.
So Is Hunter Sandbagging The Match?: No, I don’t think so. PHYSICALLY, he definitely was not. He had to go up for all sorts of shit, take leaping flip bumps off of 7 of these 9 belly-to-bellies and spinning back bumps off the other 2, and he sold a lot for all the strikes in the opening 5-6 minutes. If anything, he’s trying to save things but letting Scott conserve his cardio and selling for weak garbage- if he’d wanted Scott to really look bad, he’d just pick up the pace of the match and leave Scott huffing and puffing. And if Scott thought HHH had made him look bad here on purpose, he’d probably have said so during one of his shoots where he calls him a pussy and a guy who doesn’t want to help anyone but himself- Scott is not known for his diplomacy.
But he definitely did call a really boring match where they do the “Attitude Era Walk & Punch” as the fans are turning on it and Scott isn’t over. Taking like 30 seconds between every single move, too! HHH should have recognized the limitations of his opponent and definitely not set up all those belly-to-bellies. Scott’s obviously a veteran who could have had his say in the match too, so it’s not like those are Hunter’s fault, but man, if your opponent is that limited there’s other stuff you can do.
If anything, this match is just proof that “The HHH Match” is no good- while even the best workers probably couldn’t have saved a bout against this Scott Steiner, it exposed Hunter’s own weaknesses quite a bit- even his big selling couldn’t rescue things and of course it has to have this 17-minute “forced epic” with endless brawling to the floor because HHH’s own offense is pretty bad and he doesn’t know how to fill matches with other stuff. It’s not for nothing that Triple H had dozens and dozens of subpar matches for years during this span, with only Shawn Michaels and a few others getting anything out of him.