25 biggest pro wrestling ‘what ifs’ of the past 25 years

13. What if The Curtain Call never happened?

Staying a little bit on Triple H and the rest of his crew back in the day, let’s take a look at an incident that changed the course of WWE in so many different ways. As I said, even before Triple H got with Stephanie, his career was doing just fine. He was a good wrestler with a ton of potential, which Vince saw, and back when winning King of the Ring was still a big deal, he was in line to do just that in the summer of 1996.

Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had signed contracts to jump ship from WWE to WCW in April of that year and their final night in the company was on May 19 at a house show in New York City at Madison Square Garden, the unofficial home of WWE. Hall, who was using the Razor Ramon name at the time, and Shawn Michaels, who was the WWE Champion at the time, were babyfaces at this point while Triple H and Nash (Diesel) were heels. Michaels and Diesel closed the show in a steel cage match, which Michaels won.

Remember that this was not a televised event. The four, known not so affectionately behind the scenes as The Kliq, had asked Vince if they could all be in the ring together following the match and the boss agreed to a point since nobody would really see it. What happened next changed the industry forever. After the finish, Hall got into the ring and embraced HBK, which wasn’t a big deal given the two were good guys.

However, when Triple H got into the ring and good guys and bad guys hugged it out, MSG went insane. We see all the behind-the-scenes things today on the WWE Network and kayfabe just isn’t really a thing anymore. In 1996, however, you just didn’t do things like that. What made it worse is that a couple of guys had smuggled a video camera (no video phones back then, kids) past security and filmed the entire thing and the news spread like wildfire. Vince was livid and somebody had to take the fall. Hall and Nash were leaving so he couldn’t punish them. Shawn was the champ so there was no way he was going down. The blame fell to Triple H, who did take his punishment like a man (which apparently led to him being much more respected in the locker room), and another wrestler had to be chosen to win the King of the Ring tournament. That wrestler was none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin, who used that platform to cut the famous “Austin 3:16” promo that took him to new heights. Crazy.

So what if The Curtain Call never happens and Triple H goes on to win King of the Ring? Does his career move faster than it did? Do we ever get that Austin promo and does he ever go on to become the biggest thing in the world? It’s crazy to think that just one house show could change the timeline of wrestling but that’s how things go. Perhaps without the video camera, this isn’t as big of a deal and Vince just lets it go. This entire thing also could have been avoided if something else doesn’t happen…