Triple H had to call it in the ring due to an unfortunate injury during a planned spot.
During an appearance on ImPaulsive with Logan Paul, Triple H was asked about the craziest moment that happened to him during his in-ring career. After initially joking that he might need to make a whole list, Triple H reflected on his feud with Kurt Angle and The Rock and how he had to call an audible after Angle got hurt during one of the spots in the match.
“I might need a list. I’ll give you an examine of something that one time, The Rock, Kurt Angle and myself were in a storyline. We’re having a triple threat match at [SummerSlam 2000], and Steph’s a part of that, she’s in the back. As a part of that match, Kurt is gonna get put through a table by me. I’m gonna Pedigree him through a table, he’s gonna get knocked out and they’re gonna cart him off. Except we get up on the table, I hook Kurt’s arms, and as we’re about to go for the Pedigree, the table breaks from underneath us. I’m looking down to try to protect Kurt because I got his arms and first rule, right, protect your opponent. I’m trying to protect him. But we come down and I watch his head smash into a control box. We hit [laughs], it’s funny, right? We hit and I go down, and I hear Kurt start snoring. He’s out cold. So I put my hand on him, I go, ‘Kurt, you okay?’ He starts trying to get up, take a mouthpiece that he doesn’t have in out of his mouth, and he’s trying to get up.
‘So I grab him by his straps and I pull him down. I said, ‘Dude, don’t move.’ I hold him there and I tell the referee like he’s out. So they take him on a cart to the back, which was supposed to happen, except for he’s out and has no idea where he is. We don’t know if he’s coming back, and the whole thing is him coming from the back with Steph and coming from the back and doing all this stuff. Now, this is where the story gets terrible because today we know about concussions and everything else. None of this should have ever happened, but we didn’t know this at the time. But Kurt goes in the back, Rock and I are just working now. Now we’re off-script, and we’re just working. We’re just talking to each other, and at some point, we’re getting feedback from the back, from the referee, and finally I just tell Earl Hebner, ‘Earl, do not tell me one thing’, with a lot of expletives in there; that they say in the back. I don’t give a sh-t. I need one thing, tell me if he’s coming back if he knows where he is. That’s it, that’s all I need to know, and tell me when. We’ll just keep going until somebody tells me he can come out or he ain’t coming, I’ll figure out a finish.”
Triple H explained that Angle was out of it but still was allowed to come back to finish the match, and they had to change things on the fly to bring it home.
“Here comes Kurt, and we see him coming, Steph has him like a kid, like walking him down the ramp, and he’s glazed over. He has no idea where he is. Now Rock and I start doing stuff with him and literally just tell him what to do. At one point, I go to punch him with Steph behind him but he’s gotta duck the punch, and I’m gonna hit Steph, and like he can see me raring up, he’s just looking at me. I know he’s not ducking, I had to grab him by the neck and pull him out of the way so I could hit Steph. That’s the kind of stuff you just can’t, there’s no way to plan for it. There’s no way to anything.
“When watch that match back, you go like, ‘Oh my god, I would never know anything was wrong, I would never know anything was amiss, any of it. But for us, we were flying without radar and just going. When you get to that place, you can do anything, but it’s a challenge, and stuff happens. It is what it is. Injuries happen, moments happen where things change and you gotta just be able to switch on the fly.”
