‘He threw him under the bus’ – How Triple H was punished after stars broke character in iconic scene as Attitude Era dawned
In the year before the Montreal Screwjob, WCW was busy poaching many of WWE’s top stars.
Among them were the likes of Razor ‘Scott Hall’ Ramon and Kevin ‘Diesel’ Nash, who made the switch after Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage.
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Hall was arguably the greatest Intercontinental champion of his generation while wrestling as Ramon, featuring in the iconic ladder match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X in 1994.
Nash exploded on to the WWE scene in ’94 and, in the course of the year, held every championship on offer, his reign as WWE Champion lasting the better part of a year.
Come ’96, however, the promise of a huge payday had resulted in their agreeing contracts with WCW and, on May 19th 1996, they took part in one of the most stunning instances of wrestlers breaking character ever – and it was called The Curtain Call.
There seemed to be very little amiss when Michaels defeated an exiting Nash in a steel cage match at the end of the show at the iconic Madison Square Garden.
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The sight of Hall entering the ring and hugging Michaels might have been unusual enough given their storied rivalry but, even so, they were babyface ‘good guy’ wrestlers at the time, so fans in attendance might’ve overlooked it.
Things took a turn when Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, a good pal of the duo, entered the ring and hugged Hall, swiftly followed Nash. The duo were ‘heels’ at that time, wrestling as antagonists and rivals to fan favourites. Keeping in mind, this was 1996, so the illusion of kayfabe was still alive and well with no established online wrestling community to pull down the façade.
As such, the sight of the four men randomly hugging before turning to face the crowd and celebrate as a farewell to their group – known as The Kliq and also including Sean ‘X Pac’ Waltman– would have been astonishing, and it left company officials furious.
Thankfully for them, it was a non-televised event so there was no global audience for the rogue action to be screened to - though one fan did manage to smuggle in an amateur camera that managed to capture the chaos, a video that's since gone down in wrestling fan folklore.
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The obliteration of kayfabe would no doubt have been seen as damaging and costly to Vince McMahon and co, so a mighty punishment was in store for these rebels.
The only issue was that Hall and Nash were all but out of the door, and Michaels was WWE Champion at the time, so an unrealistic target of retribution for McMahon.
The only man left to face the brunt of McMahon’s anger would be Leveque – an astonishing thought given he went on to marry McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie, and take over his role as Head of Creative for WWE the better part of 30 years on from the incident.
It’s rumoured that Triple H, at the time a relative novice by comparison, was given a demotion of sorts, forced to wrestle away from championship contention and in decidedly less interesting rivalries for some time after.
The late Hall at least hinted towards as much, saying Michaels allowed his pal to take the wrap for the impromptu celebration.
The told 83 Weeks: “He kind of threw Triple H under the bus that night at the Garden. Triple H was supposed to get the big push. He was supposed to get the Stone Cold spot," he said in reference to Austin's win and promo that saw the birth of '3:16' which is considered the birth of the Attitude Era.
"They were grooming him for that, but then Vince had to punish somebody."
Levesque did go on to become King of the Ring the following year before enjoying a career for the ages, so he didn’t come out of The Curtain Call all that badly.
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18 months or so later, Michaels would again be embroiled in controversy, this time after going along with a plan of McMahon's that resulted in one of the most talked-about endings to a wrestling match ever - the Montreal Screwjob.
The incident saw Michaels defeat Bret Hart to become WWE Champion, but the story was one for the ages.
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