Triple H and Sting will stare across the ring from each other in a legendary showdown this Sunday night at WrestleMania 31, but "The Game" admitted recently he had to shake off a bit of ring rust when preparing for the huge bout.
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"The Game" and "The Vigilante" will go head-to-head to culminate a feud that's been building since Survivor Series in November as Sting will finally make his WWE in-ring debut after several years in WCW and TNA.
Triple H spoke with USA Today and admitted there was some ring rust initially, but he'll be ready for Sunday's match at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
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"I got in the ring for the first time the other day and fell down for the first time and it felt like my body exploded when I landed," Triple H told the publication. "It takes a little bit. You can train, but it's one of those things where 'experts' of our business that have never done it will say, 'Oh if they gave guys time off it would be better for them' or whatever, but it's honestly, having done this for 20-plus years - time off is your worst enemy. It really is, it makes it so much harder to do this."
He continued: "When you're doing it all the time it's like a callus, you're doing it and it doesn't bother you. You're functioning and you can do it every night. When you haven't done it, getting in there and doing the simplest thing, you're like, 'Oh my God, why am I doing this again?' You've got to get yourself back in the process of getting back in the ring, and the hardest [part] of doing that is... it's easy to go through that stuff when you've got 80,000 people screaming at you, it's not so easy when you're in a warehouse with a ring set up all by yourself. It hurts a whole lot more."
Triple H also touched on his training for the high-profile bout.
"Well I train all year round. One of the things I found, five years ago or so, I needed to make my training more functional," he said. "So I train with Joe DeFranco, Joe's known as kind of the combine killer for guys in the NFL. I train with Joe and he keeps me in pretty good shape. I'm a gym rat anyway so I like doing that, but once WrestleMania comes around, whether I know I'm going to be working or not working - which every year I have been, but I never really know until it comes closer. I usually start around 16 weeks out, so somewhere around the holidays or right before the holidays I start really tightening up my diet and gearing myself up towards getting back in the ring."
Lastly, Triple H talked about the balancing act he has to put forward between being a wrestler and an executive during WrestleMania on Sunday.
"That is the hardest part," he said. "WrestleMania week for me, logistically, from an executive to a talent standpoint is crazy I did a DVD a couple of years ago called "Thy Kingdom Come" and they documented a little bit of it. It's literally like one minute I'm speaking at a business partner summit, where I'm speaking to our business partners from all over the globe as an executive talking about all the things that we're doing, and literally coming off stage, changing my clothes as fast I can to jeans and a leather jacket because I have to go do an autograph signing."
He added: "They drive me over there with a police escort, I'm eating on the way, I'm signing autographs for two hours and meeting the fans and having to be on as a performer, finishing that and running backstage, changing in the car while I'm on my way to go have a meeting with a bunch of international clients. And that's all while my department itself, talent relations, completely controls everything WrestleMania from a talent standpoint. Which, we just did the numbers this year today and I think we're at like 850 appearances and we're still almost five weeks out. Logistically, trying to get talent to 850 appearances, probably close to 1,000 by 'Mania over the course of that week. Usually if we do our jobs well nobody's late, nobody misses an appearance. But it's just... insanity. That's the best way to describe that week for me."
Triple H vs. Sting is one of many huge matches planned for WrestleMania 31 live this Sunday from Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
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