Just for a moment, forget all the things and catch phrases. Overlook the seemingly countless championships and tournaments he has won. The fact that Triple H has spearheaded two of the most important factions in WWE history, and overcome what the pundits considered career-ending injuries. You need only two words to properly sum up Triple H: The Game.

Strong words, especially when one considers the King of Kings was once a 135-pound “beanpole” from Nashua, N.H. But when he received a free one-week membership for a small local gym one summer day, the 14-year-old “gangly” teen’s life changed forever. For the next three years, he spent nearly every day in that gym, developing every muscle in his body and transforming himself into a six-foot-four, 210-pound powerhouse. He entered — and won — numerous regional bodybuilding competitions, including the prestigious Teen Mr. New Hampshire title at the age of 19. Yet The Game himself admits, “I never seriously considered becoming a pro bodybuilder…My dream was World Wrestling Entertainment.”

Enrolling in Walter “Killer” Kowalski’s Pro Wrestling School in Malden, Mass., the future Cerebral Assassin trained four days a week under Kowalski’s “tough love” tutelage, then divided his weekends between wrestling in the independent circuit and managing a Gold’s Gym in Nashua. Almost inconceivably, he would have to fly himself down to Atlanta in 1993, to convince then-new VP Eric Bischoff that he was “good enough” to join the World Championship Wrestling roster. Fortunately, the unlimited potential he showed at World Championship Wrestling quickly got him noticed at World Wrestling Entertainment; by May 1995, “Hunter Hearst-Helmsley” would make his WWE debut. And the rest, as they say, is history.