Jim Ross On Critics Who Say Triple H’s Success Is Due To Marrying Stephanie McMahon

Former WWE Head of Talent Relations and Commentator Jim Ross spoke on the latest episode of Grilling JR about Triple H and the disrespect he has received over the years from fans and wrestlers due to him marrying Stephanie McMahon.

Over his 20 years with WWE, Ross grew to become close to Triple H and even his parents as he detailed on the podcast. Being the Head of Talent Relations during much of Triple H's rise to superstardom, Ross detailed how much complaining he would hear about "The King of Kings" marrying into the McMahon family and that being a reason why he got a big push.

"People get pissed at Triple H because they're jealous and because of who he married," Ross said. "Maybe they believe that he would not have been such a success if he had not married the boss's daughter. I totally disagree with that. You can't tell me the wedding vows made him a great worker, he made himself a great worker but he's not given enough credit for it because of the jealousy thing and the anti-McMahon backlash at times. He's never given credit sometimes for his hard work and his dedication to the business."

Ross discussed Triple H's historic loss at WrestleMania 12 to Ultimate Warrior. Bruce Prichard recently discussed the match and how Warrior was difficult to deal with in the lead up to it. Ross Triple H praise for being okay with allowing Warrior to squash him.

"We've talked about the Warrior, he's a head case," Ross said. "He's always worried about things, he was hard to do business with at times. What we wanted to try to accomplish there was to put him with somebody that he could trust and that he knew would make Warrior look good and we trusted Triple H to get that done. It wasn't a great booking for him I guess, he's going to work with one of the previously known stars of the business, he is going to do the honors. He also knew what his real job was there, to protect the image of the Ultimate Warrior because we didn't know at that time that Warrior didn't have plenty of gas in the tank, if he was going to become this red hot box office attraction that he used to be.

"We didn't know that, we hoped that he would but we knew that if he got started off on the wrong foot and fans saw too much rust or too many missteps, we knew that Hunter was not going to put the Warrior in a situation that the Warrior couldn't address and come out looking good. That was really the deal, it was more that we had great trust in Triple H, we knew his skill set was conducive to covering up Warriors inconsistencies and I talked to Paul about that over the years. He'll laugh about it but the bottom line was he understood what his role was and he didn't mind being a role player in that situation. He knew going forward if he was going to continue to rise up the ladder, he's going to have to work with a lot of guys that may not have his same skill set but he's going to have to work with them and end up when they leave the ring with people saying that's a hell of a match."

Ross continued to mention how Triple H was squashed by Warrior in under two minutes, with Warrior even no-selling his Pedigree finisher.

"I wouldn't have done that," Ross said. "I'm sure Warrior probably wanted that spot in and again, the office knew that was not the way to go but you got to get over that hill of kicking out of the Pedigree or no-selling the Pedigree. Again, going out of our way to adhere to the insecurities and the paranoia of the Warrior.

"Was it the right thing to do in theory? Of course not. You kick out a guy you're building's finish and you beat him in two minutes? Again, the risk reward was if we can get Warrior hot again, we're going to come out of those dull rooms where the business was soft and a lot of talents weren't hot and over. That's all we were trying to do. If Warriors got some fuel left in the tank, let's get something [out of it]."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.