100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 9 - Scott Steiner vs. Triple H
World Heavyweight Championship - Royal Rumble 2003
After 91 entries, we’ve finally hit the Reign of Terror. If I had to list my least favourite time periods of any wrestler ever, 2002-2005 Triple H would hold a lofty position on that list, only behind the irredeemable and grotesque likes of Bastion Booger and the Boogeyman. Everything about this era of Triple H boils my piss. I hate his ugly-ass non-beard; I hate his stupid coloured trunks (don’t get me started on biker-short Triple H); I hate his insistence on chewing gum like he’s the love child of Sir Alex Ferguson and Pete Carroll; I hate his droning 30 minute promos that started every Raw. Despite this, I have resisted temptation all this time to avoid the immediate post-quad injury Triple H. No Chris Jericho borefest at Wrestlemania where fans were visibly leaving the arena during; no pedestrian 30 minute Shawn Michaels 3 Stages of Hell match; no bingo card quintessential Reign of Terror formula Kevin Nash match; no 45 minute circlejerk with Shawn Michaels in Hell in a Cell. For one reason or another, all managed to avoid the indignity of falling onto this list. The chronological first Triple H match on this list that we’ve seen thus far was not until 2008, if you can believe that.
There has always been one that stood above all others. One whereby all other terrible Reign of Terror matches must be compared. Amidst a catalogue of sledgehammers, referee bumps, DQ finishes, dumb attention-seeking Earl Hebner spots, unnecessary blade jobs, there was always one Triple H match from this era which stood atop shit mountain.
A running theme of some recent posts, often those featuring Triple H himself, is the inability to recognise an appropriate length of a match based on the talent involved. Perhaps it is the old school mindset of Triple H - that all main event matches must be the longest on the card. Perhaps it is an over-estimation of his talents, either by himself or the company. Whatever the reason, the “overly long Triple H match” is a trope that has existed since pretty much the moment he became a main event wrestler and only truly ended with his retirement - as a certain match at Crown Jewel 2018 can attest to.
I recognise I’ve now gone three paragraphs without referencing Triple H’s opponent, who is widely considered to be the main culprit for the disaster we are about to watch. And while it is very true that Scott Steiner is terrible in this match, I believe it is a facile summary of what truly went wrong on this night.
This is Steiner’s first televised match in a major US promotion in two years since WCW closed its doors. For those that were spared the indignity of watching the dying days of WCW, Scott Steiner was one of the few bright sparks. The Big Poppa Pump personality, which was as much a real life reflection of Steiner as it was an on-screen character, made for fascinating television. When Scott Steiner debuted at Survivor Series 2002, it was no surprise it was to a huge ovation and much anticipation. In a series of storyline negotiations where it was implied he slept with SmackDown General Manager, Stephanie McMahon, he eventually signed with the Raw brand after Bischoff offered Steiner a World Heavyweight Championship match.
What’s important to note is that Steiner is coming into this match with drop foot syndrome that he had suffered in the dying days of WCW. The nerve damage left him mostly immobile and unable to properly lift one foot off the ground. This is important context, not only as an explanation for Steiner’s performance, but also how ill-conceived the planning for his signing, initial feud, and this match truly is. This does not excuse the performance, but does explain it.
All the failures of this match are symptomatic of the failings of Triple H as a main event performer after his quad injury. The only real difference here is that Triple H wasn’t wrestling someone who was just mediocre, uninterested, or washed up like Kane, Kevin Nash, or Goldberg. He was wrestling someone who was wholly incapable of even doing the bare minimum. It is not like this was a surprise to WWE officials either. Steiner had been working house shows for 2 months by this point, and it was known that he was not in good ring shape. Like all walks of life, any good employer needs to recognise the weaknesses of their talent. If the employer willfully puts the employee in a position where they are guaranteed to fail, then how much blame should be attributed to said employee? Scott Steiner in the dying days of WCW worked best in short matches as a heel where he can dominate a babyface by chucking him about. This match is the complete opposite of what works. It’s like trying to bake cookies without any kind of fat product and wondering why they end up dry and tough.
Before these two men even step foot in the ring, this is already incredibly embarrassing to be a wrestling fan. The feud was built around a series of bodybuilding challenges. Arm wrestling, pose downs, push up contest. If you have never subjected yourself to the misery that is 2003 Raw, just know that this is some of the worst wrestling content ever aired on mainstream television. Even just watching the pre-match video package is enough to give a good indication that it should not be viewed or enjoyed by anyone. There’s nothing like a classic 2003 WWE video package to the Nu Metal band of the week, all the while watching them posing down or Triple H being stripped to his underwear.
As the match begins, the crowd is pretty into Steiner to start. The first red flag of the contest is some horrendous looking punches by Steiner. They do not get better as this goes on either. But outside of that, the match is adequate. You’d be forgiven for thinking in the first half of the match that it isn’t that bad and nowhere near worth being on the list outside of some weak offence from Steiner. It seems like just another mediocre Triple H match. That said, you still have some loathsome predictable Triple H spots such as: the pedigree counter into a ring post toss; climbing the turnbuckle for the sole purpose of taking a superplex; and the dreaded flying nothing. For someone whose gimmick is literally that he’s smarter than everyone else, his matches aren’t half full of illogical, transparent spots.
The match structure is all over the place here. It’s 17 minutes long, and Steiner is asked to dominate the majority of that. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. Hell, Ric Flair built a lot of his career being dominated by more powerful babyfaces. But the problem is, Triple H is far from Ric Flair, and the Triple H formula was vastly inferior to Flair’s. Unlike Flair, who could reliably be asked to fit just about anyone into the formula, Triple H does not share that same luxury. Instead, they’re relying on a guy who hasn’t worked full time in 2 years, who was never known for lengthy matches, who is injured, and who is wrestling as a babyface for the first time in years. Nothing about this makes sense, and shows a startling lack of foresight and intuition.
Several people have speculated that Triple H intentionally sandbagged Steiner in an effort to make him look bad. I do not agree with this stance personally, nor did Jim Ross in a later interview. I suppose it depends on how much influence you believe Triple H had in the booking of the feud and structure of the match. It also depends whether you consider negligence a form of sabotage. To me, I think the match is your classic Triple H main event from this time period, but with the key difference being the quality of his opponent. Dumb and ill-sighted? Yes. A masterful plot to hold back Steiner? I’m not convinced.
By about the halfway point, Steiner is absolutely exhausted. Not only is he physically gassed, but he seems mentally out of it because he seemingly forgets how to wrestle. It’s just suplex after suplex after suplex, which the fans recognise very quickly. If you think the match isn’t too bad in the first half, I imagine your opinion changes once you get to the second half. The crowd gets very impatient with each belly-to-belly suplex, each one drawing more and more ire from the crowd. There is no sugar-coating how bad Steiner is, and while this review may feel like it’s mostly a hit piece against Triple H, I am under no illusions that the failure of this match falls on Steiner being woefully unprepared and out of ring shape. His performance here is disgustingly bad, and I don’t think there’s much that a better wrestler than Triple H could have done to salvage this under these circumstances with this amount of time. The belly-to-belly suplexes are the only thing he can do that looks remotely competent. Every other move looks weak. But in recognising this is the only move he could do, it meant that all he could add to the match was to spam it thoughtlessly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many suplexes in my life” says JR, blissfully unaware of what is coming to WWE in 2014. If Brock Lesnar founded Suplex City, then consider this its Chernobyl equivalent.
The most infamous moment of the match is when Steiner goes for a butterfly suplex, and it becomes apparent why he’d mostly been sticking to belly-to-belly suplexes. When he tries the butterfly suplex, he fails to get Triple H up over his head and instead stumbles backwards on his arse to the anger of the crowd.
This match has every shitty Triple H trope you can think of. I suppose the only thing it lacks is Ric Flair (who is almost assuredly the best worker present) taking any bumps until the aftermath. At one point, Triple H tries to flee up the ramp and is stopped in his tracks. Steiner blasts him with the World Championship and Triple H blades, despite the fact he’s obviously hit by the leather part. Because every Triple H match from this era absolutely needs the blade job to try and trick anyone into thinking it’s any good.
I would be remiss to mention one of the more understated things I hate about the 2003 Triple H run and that is his petty bickering with Earl Hebner in every match. This match sees a shitty spot where Triple H throws Hebner out the ring to try and get himself disqualified. Earl Hebner, the attention seeking referee he is, once again commands all the spotlight for a brief moment in this World Title match, and refuses to DQ Hunter. Steiner follows up the opportunity with … another suplex. Following a low blow by Hunter, the rest of the match and post-match features Steiner with his thong on full display, just to further add to the embarrassment. If Steiner’s main event run wasn’t DOA before, it was six foot under after that.
Steiner would be the first of many WCW alumni that Triple H would run through in 2003. It’s like the man was bitter that he missed the entire Invasion storyline and felt compelled to make up for lost time. They’d even have the chance to run this match back at No Way Out the following month in another bad match that probably only survived the list by virtue of it looking decent in comparison to this suplex-ridden disaster.
This pay-per-view should have been dead here - it’s very difficult to come back from a dud like this. The crowd were extremely pissed off by this match, and rightfully so. At the start of the subsequent Chris Benoit versus Kurt Angle match you can feel it in the air as the crowd is noticeably muted and unenthusiastic. Thanks to a frankly Herculean effort by those two men, they salvaged the show and with it produced one of the great matches in the history of WWE. In a strange way, I’m almost thankful that this match exists because I find it only heightens the beauty and legacy of Angle versus Benoit that they had to go out there and produce the antithesis of what preceded them. In a running theme from the start of the brand split, Raw was producing horrible wrestling, while SmackDown was giving us a seemingly never ending list of wonderful matches. Never before was that more apparent than the 2003 Royal Rumble.
Up Next - Who would have thought the two men responsible for the greatest wrestling match ever could also produce this?
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2003 Triple H is the worse. I know complaining about the lack of time given to women's wrestling pre, like 2016, is a massive fool's errand, but I was watching Judgement Day 2003, and after finishing the pretty fun fatal 4 way match, that went just under 5, I decided to check out the Nash and Triple H match, and Jesus Christ. It is literally insane that they let him have these type of matches for literally all of 2003. So slow, so self indulgent, serves no purpose, so uninteresting, and so much Earl Hebner. I know I'm not breaking any new ground, but as a young ish fan, who really doesn't tend to watch male wrestling around this time, it is just as bad as everyone says. What kind of sickos do you have to be to give a 30 minute segment that's based around a guy, who can barely walk, and is 2 months away from retiring, and in addition have Earl Hebner being so ALL OVER the match. I kinda wanna watch all these 2003 Triple H matches, but I think that's like, actual torture, but it also feels like there's no way they're all consistently terrible, but it really does seem like they were....