Triple H On Recent WrestleMania Match With The Rock Falling Through, Why WrestleMania 16 Was Changed

WrestleMania 32 saw Triple H defend the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Roman Reigns and The Rock defeat Erick Rowan in a quick match. According to Triple H, if The Rock's schedule was different, he and The Rock could have had a match on that WrestleMania. He talked about scenario with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT before NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II, that was just uploaded this week.

"I don't remember the details of it, but it was one of those things that Rock and I talked about to the point where we did the backstage promo. 'Let's throw a scene out there and see what happens.' It blew up, so we talked about it some more. Then scheduling just got in the way," Triple H said. "At that point, we were over a year away from that WrestleMania. It wasn't until, maybe four months of the following year, we got to that, and Rock goes, 'it's just not gonna work. I just can't. All of my stuff. My movies and everything has changed. I just can't make it work anymore.'

"It was what it was. I would've loved to have [done] it. It would've been a blast to step in there with him one more time and tear it up."

Triple H admitted how much he liked working with The Rock and wished they had the chance to have a WrestleMania match against each other. He also talked about how they were always intertwined with each other even before they became the big stars of the Attitude Era.

"It was so competitive out there for all of us, but I don't know if I had more fun with than with him. I worked with him so much so many times," Triple H said. "From him being Rocky Maivia and me being Hunter Hearst Helmsley, all the way through, [we] just kept going back to each other, and it was always magic I felt like. We both had that comfort level with each other where it was just easy to get in the ring and just go and have a blast doing it and create something special. To do again, could've been something awesome. Sometimes it's not in the cards."

Another WrestleMania that The Rock and Triple H were slated to square off in a singles match was WrestleMania 2000. Instead, plans changed and it turned into a fatal four-way match with Mick Foley and The Big Show being added. Triple H talked about why things changed and how he wished that the planned match could have happened.

"One of the things people always ask me is regrets, and it's not really a regret. It's just one of those things that I wish we would've had the chance to do in 2000 when we did the fatal four-way match. That was originally supposed to be The Rock and I," Triple H said. "I believe if I remember correctly, he might remember too, we were supposed to do an iron man match. It was the originally scheduled match at Mania. Timing of returns and everybody else and they needed to get us to another pay per view is why we did the four-way and came back and did the iron man match later. I really wished I had that opportunity with him one-on-one at WrestleMania because we had done so much together having that one-on-one would've been special."

Triple H now only wrestles a few times a year due to his executive role with WWE and working on NXT and its brands. He talked about how those few matches allow him to appreciate the big moments more since they don't happen that often including his match last year with Batista.

"The cool thing about when you get to a point where I'm at in my career is that you sort of appreciate the moments more. When you're busy doing it, you appreciate it, but man, you're in the thick of it. It's tough. When you get later [in your career], you start to realize that these moments come now and then. They might not anymore. You can sort of appreciate the moment more. It's a lot more difficult. It's a lot more pressure on yourself too when you don't do this a lot," Triple H said. "When Dave called to ask me about doing that, and we spoke about, it was, for both us, an ability to go back in time but at a point where we both can appreciate it. Kind of relive that moment but do it again and try to go out there and do it in a way where you don't embarrass yourself. I think it's even more special now to do it in that manner."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Alex McCarthy with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.