Triple H created the Pedigree while he was training with Killer Kowolski, and it turned into one of the best things he ever did. The move helped him win 14 World Championship titles, two Royal Rumble match and host of other huge bouts, against stars like Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena.
The Pedigree’s technical name is the Double Hook Facebuster, and sees Triple H place his opponent’s head between his leg, before locking their arms behind their backs. The Game then jumps into the air, slamming his opponent down onto their face, and usually pinning them to win the match. CM Punk also used a variation of the move, called the “Pepsi Plunge“.
You can click the video below to see a compilation of Pedigrees from Triple H in the WWE.
While learning to wrestling in the school of the legendary Killer Kowolski, Triple H came up with the idea of altering a move that he saw as “hokey”, birthing the idea of “The Pedigree” years before the move would debut in the WWE in 1995.
Speaking with Loudwire to refute some lies on his Wikipedia page, Triple H revealed how he invented The Pedigree, as well as how it came to be his finisher in the WWE.
“The first time I did the Pedigree was actually at (Killer) Kowolski’s. This is funny, because I’ve since seen a clip of Andre The Giant doing a similar move. Andre did it in Japan with (Antonio) Inoki, grabbing his arms and dropping to his knees, and Inoki took a Piledriver.”
“Kowloski used to do the thing where you put the guy’s head between your legs and jump, and the guy would take a bump ot of it. He was showing it to somebody one day, and I hated that move because I thought it looked hokey. I was like ‘If you went down with that, its a face-first kind of pile driver thing, that would actually be kind of cool’, and then I started thinking about it, I was like ‘You’d have to hook the guy’s arms or something’.”
“I started using it in WCW, because I felt like it was different and nobidy had ever seen it, and everyone was like ‘What’s that one thing you did that was really cool?'”
“When I came up to WWE at the time, they changed my character into other stuff, they wanted me to use the RKO – they were like ‘How about this as a finish?’ and I was like ‘Okay’. Dallas Page called me, very upset. There was a couple of matches I did with enhancement guys where it didn’t look good. I came back and was I was like ‘It’s sometimes hit or miss’ and they were like ‘yeah, you’re right – is there something else you can do?’.”
“That next day when we were at TV, i just grabbed a guy and showed them the pedigree, and they were like ‘Oh that’s so much better. Let’s do that'”.
While Triple H invented the move, it was Michael Hayes who came up with the idea of calling it “The Pedigree”. Triple H was working his “Bluebood” character at the time, and Michael Hayes had the idea to reference the idea of his aristocratic heritage by referencing his character’s “pedigree”.
“Michael Hayes is the one that named it, because my character was The Bluebood, Michael Hayes was in the company and Michael Hayes was like ‘Hey man, what if you called that “The Pedigree”, like you’re giving some guy his Pedigree?'”