Triple H has some fond memories of the Hog Pen Match despite ending his night getting cut up and rolling around in pig poop.
Triple H took part in a media call after NXT TakeOver: In Your House and was asked about the infamous match between himself and Henry O. Godwinn at In Your House 5 in December 1995. Early on in Triple H’s WWE career, he was known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a snooty blue-blood character that was in direct contrast to Godwinn’s blue-collar farmer gimmick. He revealed that he was actually the person to suggest Godwinn be presented as a babyface, noting that most guys didn’t want to take Godwinn’s post-match slop bucket but he saw it as an opportunity.
“It’s funny, people sometimes look at that match—I’m almost positive it was before the ‘Curtain Call’—that whole scenario with Henry Godwinn came based off of Henry was a heel and putting slop on people and guys didn’t want to do it. They didn’t want to take it, and I went to Vince and was like, ‘If you turn him babyface, I’ll take that slop all day long.’ Nobody would want to not get that slop on them more than me, my character, right? The snob, I wouldn’t even want to get in the ring with this guy.” Triple H said. “And Vince looked at it as great, so he turned Henry babyface and I didn’t want to get in the ring with him, all of that.
“We did that slop match all over the country, every night. It ruined my gear more than anything but it was awesome, I loved it. When they ran the idea past me and first threw the Pig Pen Match at me,” Triple H said, “I thought it was phenomenal. As a snob heel, what better thing could happen than you have to get thrown into a pen with pig poop and all of that stuff? It was phenomenal and I loved it. I could have done without quite as much poop in the pen. Those pigs were big and they had been in there all day, so it was quite a significant amount in there.”
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Triple H explained that the pig handler advised him to ‘keep [his] fingers tucked underneath because the pigs sometimes get a bit antsy and they’ll bite’ and Godwinn though it was funny to rile the pigs up. He noted that there was some downside to the match, including cutting his back open and rolling around in poop, but it was otherwise an awesome memory still talked about today.
“I think that’s one of those matches as a performer, it was one of the first things that I got to do here that was really memorable, you know? People still talk about the match to the day with me and will bring it up. When you can still talk about it—it was in ’95, ’96,” Triple H said, “and you’re still talking about it to this day? That’s pretty awesome. I loved it.”
Triple H went on to add that one other ‘plus’ was getting a reaction out of the fans, noting how strong the pigpen smell was in the arena that night in Hershey. He added that the payoff was the Hog Pen match at In Your House, but they toured the country and did the slop bucket spot that became so popular that people started preparing for it (and ducking for cover).
“I had so much fun in that match. Henry Godwinn was one of my favorite opponents in that timeframe. I had more fun with him doing that slop match all over the country, we used to do that match everywhere. He’d bring these big buckets of slop, we did that match, the whole loop in Europe, all over the US. This was pre-internet, but people started bringing big plastic sheets with them in the front row because they knew,” Triple H said. “ It was like going to a Gallagher concert, you knew you were going to get the slop all over you. I was going to throw it everywhere and you were going to get a mess. Man, we had a blast.”
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