Triple H Responds to Chyna Getting Inducted Into WWE Hall of Fame

WWE announced on Monday that five members of D-Generation X — Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chyna, [...]

WWE announced on Monday that five members of D-Generation X — Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chyna, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn — would all be entering the WWE Hall of Fame for the Class of 2019.

The news was particularly momentous for fans of Chyna, who had been left out of WWE Hall of Fame for years despite campaigning from fans, fellow wrestlers and Chyna's family members after her passing in 2016.

Triple H, who was romantically involved with Chyna throughout a majority of DX's run in the late 90s, stated back in 2015 in an interview with Steve Austin that part of the reason for not inducting Chyna in was due to her involvement in the adult film industry after her pro wrestling career.

"From a career standpoint, should she be in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely," Triple H said at the time. "It's a bit difficult, though, and this is the flipside of the coin — and this is the side nobody looks at — I've got an eight-year-old kid, and my eight-year-old kid sees Hall of Fame, and my eight-year-old kid goes on the Internet to look at Chyna. What comes up? And I'm not criticizing anybody. I'm not criticizing lifestyle choices. Everybody has their reasons. I don't know what they were. I don't care to know. It's not a morality thing or anything else. It is just the fact of what it is. That's a difficult choice."

In an interview with ESPN where the story was broken on Monday, Triple H mentioned those previous comments as he reflected on Chyna's induction.

"Look, people believe what they want to believe," he said. "When I said a few years ago on the Austin podcast, or show, or whatever you want to call it, there's complexities around it. But absolutely, definitely deserves to be in there. It'd be tough to pick a female that was more impactful on the business. She did something that was completely so out of left field that it wasn't even being considered when we first brought it up for her to come in. It wasn't even a consideration ... it wasn't an easy thing, and against all odds she did all of that. She earned everybody's trust. She won over the fans. She won over the boys. She did all of it.

"From that standpoint, absolutely 100 percent deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and should probably be more than once — as a group, but individually as well," he continued. "There's more complexity to that than meets the eye, but here we are. I'm just happy that it's here. I'm happy for her family, the people that she was close to, that hopefully this is super-meaningful to them. I know it would be to her. It's a great thing — very deserving."

Chyna wrestled for the WWE from 1997-2001, winning the Intercontinental Championship twice and the Women's Championship once.

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