Bret Hart vs. DX (Shawn Michaels, Chyna, Triple H)

It’s the night after Bad Blood 1 and Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Chyna are the top heels. Here, Triple H & Shawn Michaels run down Vince McMahon for an incident in 1996 that punished Triple H for one year.

The 1996 incident occured in Madison Square Garden during Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) and Diesel’s (Kevin Nash) final match in the WWF. After the show, Razor and Nash hugged Michaels & Triple H in the ring, breaking character for the first time in modern wrestling history. Vince McMahon saw this as a break in family and wrestling tradition and punished Triple H for about one year. Triple H was scheduled to get a big push in 1996. That push was put off for nearly a year due to he and Shawn breaking character.

Yes, Shawn Michaels was on top at the time and ‘could’ have been punished. But he was a big draw at the, and thus, Triple H was mad an example out of. The “Clique” that Michaels is referring to was collectively, himself, Nash, Hall and Sean Waltman (Syxx/Xpack/1-2-3 Kid/Lightning Kid). Chyna went out with Triple for a short time, as well.