The Kliq
| The Kliq | |
|---|---|
The Kliq in 2015
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|
| Statistics | |
| Members |
Shawn Michaels Scott Hall Kevin Nash Triple H Sean Waltman |
| Name(s) | The Kliq |
The Kliq (sometimes spelled as Clique) was a backstage group in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the mid-1990s, composed of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Sean Waltman. Several of the men, most notably Michaels, Nash, and Hall, wielded an immense amount of power within the company at the time, which they used to positively influence one another's careers.
In 1996, The Kliq broke character at a live event at Madison Square Garden in an unscripted incident referred to as the "Curtain Call", which had far-reaching ramifications for the WWF specifically and the wrestling world as a whole. At a time when professional wrestling organizations worked to maintain the illusion of storylines and characters, the Curtain Call marked the first time that such high profile performers had so publicly broken character, forcing the WWF and other wrestling organizations to begin acknowledging the scripted elements of their programming.
The Kliq was also the primary catalyst for two of the most controversial stables in wrestling history: the New World Order (nWo) in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the WWF/E, and D-Generation X (DX) in the WWF/E. Of the Kliq, Waltman would serve in both groups; Triple H and Shawn Michaels were members of DX while Nash and Hall performed with the nWo.
The Kliq was formed in the early-to-mid 1990s by real-life best friends Scott Hall (then known as Razor Ramon), Kevin Nash (Diesel), Michael Hickenbottom (Shawn Michaels), Paul Levesque (Hunter Hearst Helmsley), and Sean Waltman (1-2-3 Kid), then all performers in the WWF. Each man enjoyed a tremendous amount of popularity with fans, which allotted them a particular degree of control over their own careers. Nash, Hall, and Michaels, then among the company's most popular performers, came up with the idea of forming a backstage alliance, which would potentially allow them to consolidate even more power within the company. Bret Hart, another of the company's top performers at the time, claims in his autobiography Hitman that he was also asked if he wanted to be part of the group, but declined the offer: "The thing I remember most about that tour was Shawn, Razor, and Nash talking to me in Hamburg about the idea of forming a clique of top guys who strictly took care of their own". Levesque mentioned on the 2013 Triple H - Thy Kingdom Come DVD that he was recruited to the Kliq by Kevin Nash because he didn't do drugs or alcohol, and thus could serve as the group's designated driver after events.
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