From Blue Blood to DX?

[avalanchi]

I was too young to remember exactly what happened. But when Hunter's character transitioned from Blood Blood Royalty to "bad ass" in DX. Did it happen gradually? Or did he cut a promo and BAM?

[BigJerichool222]

It was gradual IIRC...Chyna helped fill the gap.

[percymania]

Yeah, HHH & Chyna started hanging around HBK - Bret Hart called them a bunch of degenerates - the rest was history. It was gradual shift for HHH's character, but it didn't take all that long. Once HBK won the title and Bret Hart was gone, that's when business began to pick up - as JR would say.

[rapidfire187]

He still had the blue blood character when Chyna was with him, and even used the theme music during the early days of DX before they got the DX theme. It was toned down, but he was still going by Hunter Hearst Helmsley and wore the robes and whatnot to the ring. It's one of my favorite incarnations of his character too.

I seem to remember that the DX thing just kind of came out of the blue. HHH and Chyna seemed to randomly start helping HBK. I'm thinking that Mankind was involved as the common enemy.

[Trent Valentine]

As the poster above said, Mankind was a common enemy as was The Undertaker, So they decided to join forces. They hired Ravishing Rick Rude as a bodyguard and DX was in full force.

Furthermore, HBK's arrogance and brashness rubbed off on HHH and he changed for the better. As the weeks went on, he slowly started to drop aspects of his rich nobleman character. He went from a rich aristocrat to a to an obnoxious wild haired prankster(complete with penis jokes.) all in the span of a few months. When HBK went down with a bad back, he assumed full control of Degeneration X, erasing any trace of his rich Connecticut aristocratic ways.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

Dec 23, 2010 6:38:55 GMT -5 Trent Valentine said:

As the poster above said, Mankind was a common enemy as was The Undertaker, So they decided to join forces. They hired Ravishing Rick Rude as a bodyguard and DX was in full force.

Furthermore, HBK's arrogance and brashness rubbed off on HHH and he changed for the better. As the weeks went on, he slowly started to drop aspects of his rich nobleman character. He went from a rich aristocrat to a to an obnoxious wild haired prankster(complete with penis jokes.) all in the span of a few months. When HBK went down with a bad back, he assumed full control of Degeneration X, erasing any trace of his rich Connecticut aristocratic ways.

Pretty much this. Once HBK was out of the picture, he dropped all aspects of the old character.

[sebulba]

Dec 22, 2010 13:22:47 GMT -5 BigJerichool222 said:

It was gradual IIRC...Chyna helped fill the gap.

Am I the only one who choked back a laugh / small amount of vomit at that comment?

[Bald Bull]

Wasn't Commissioner Slaughter was the common enemy? He tried to mess with HBK and HHH by having them team with each other for no good reason against Undertaker and Mankind (Because HHH was feuding with Mankind and HBK was feuding with Undertaker...but Undertaker and Mankind didn't have an alliance so it was confusing) then they just kept hanging out with each other. So Slaughter's plan backfired.

Pretty sure it's all explained on the DX home video that I have somewhere.

[agent817]

Dec 23, 2010 6:38:55 GMT -5 Trent Valentine said:

As the poster above said, Mankind was a common enemy as was The Undertaker, So they decided to join forces. They hired Ravishing Rick Rude as a bodyguard and DX was in full force.

Furthermore, HBK's arrogance and brashness rubbed off on HHH and he changed for the better. As the weeks went on, he slowly started to drop aspects of his rich nobleman character. He went from a rich aristocrat to a to an obnoxious wild haired prankster(complete with penis jokes.) all in the span of a few months. When HBK went down with a bad back, he assumed full control of Degeneration X, erasing any trace of his rich Connecticut aristocratic ways.

Perhaps you are right about most of the things, but I think Triple H still came out in robes for a few months until I think Summerslam. But the robes had DX logos and were like silver and black with green on them to give them more edge and the DX style with it. Also, I think it wasn't until Over The Edge in 1998 that he started wearing those tights that said HHH on them. Before that, he had the DX style in his old jeans style tights, like the ones he wore at Unforgiven and Wrestlemania.

[molson5]

Dec 23, 2010 7:13:29 GMT -5 Bald Bull said:

Wasn't Commissioner Slaughter was the common enemy? He tried to mess with HBK and HHH by having them team with each other for no good reason against Undertaker and Mankind (Because HHH was feuding with Mankind and HBK was feuding with Undertaker...but Undertaker and Mankind didn't have an alliance so it was confusing) then they just kept hanging out with each other. So Slaughter's plan backfired.

Pretty sure it's all explained on the DX home video that I have somewhere.

Ya, I definitely remember HHH and HBK being forced into a tag team at some point, and even the commentators speculating if they could get along.

None of Slaughter's plans worked very well. He was a pretty terrible kayfabe commissioner.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

All in all, the first HHH/HBK vs Taker/Mankind match may have been one of the oddest historically signifcant matches in recent memory. Not only was HBK/HHH completely random at the time, but having Taker and Mankind team up less than 6 months after lighting each other on fire was pretty strange too...

Also, I believe that match was the first time Taker was ever busted open.

[Yami Daimao]

Dec 22, 2010 13:35:00 GMT -5 rapidfire187 said:

He still had the blue blood character when Chyna was with him, and even used the theme music during the early days of DX before they got the DX theme. It was toned down, but he was still going by Hunter Hearst Helmsley and wore the robes and whatnot to the ring. It's one of my favorite incarnations of his character too.

Mine too. I think the best way to describe this character would be "Royal Dickhead".