Was HHH’s retirement on RAW real? Simple answer: no. It was too small scale for such an amazing WWE superstar. It doesn’t make sense for him to retire now in terms of the WWE as a story and then there’s the simple fact that HHH never actually formally announced his retirement. But if this wasn’t the end of HHH, then what was it? That’s the exciting part.
HHH: WWE’s Best Actor?
Before we get to what is really going on with HHH, let me say one thing. The fact that HHH’s retirement appeared realistic was entirely down to good acting skills by the game. As an actor myself I very rarely say that anyone in the WWE has put in good acting (mostly because they very rarely do). But HHH’s retirement did actually have genuine emotion and was semi-believable. WWE Films should cast HHH in more productions as he is clearly more capable than most.
HHH Retirement Make No Sense
HHH’s acting was believable, but the story of his retirement simply isn’t. For him to bow out now would be like putting his tail between his legs and shuffling off. That’s simply not The Game’s character. In terms of his personality, HHH is one of the WWE’s toughest fighters. He lives to fight. To bow out so easily would devalue his character, which in turn means devaluing a key figure in the WWE’s history, which does not serve either HHH himself or the WWE as a whole.
The Truth behind The Game
So where is this ordeal heading? Why would the WWE give him a false retirement? To answer this, we need to consider what benefit his retirement gives the WWE. As with law, motive is everything, so what motivated this?
The Benefits / Motives of HHH’s Retirement
There are several key ways in which HHH’s retirement benefits the WWE. The first, and most obvious, is that it creates a tidalwave of emotion through the WWE Universe towards HHH. Just thinking of The Game’s retirement makes us remember how much he means to us. It boosts his character exponentially. The first motive, then, was simply to boost the Universe’s emotional attachment to HHH. And the fact that the WWE want us to feel emotionally attached to HHH suggests they’re setting us up for a big event starring the Games. After all, everything the WWE does is in the interest of the next major PPV, so their motive for making us feel strongly about HHH means they must be setting up a new, and very big, HHH story.
The second benefit is the fact that, even though HHH has almost certainly not retired yet he has now officially entered the end of his lifecycle. Everything The Game does now will be moving him towards the real retirement.
Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar, of course, has benefited from all this too. The idea of him retiring one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time gives him a tremendous power surge and also makes him one hell of a villain.
So we have HHH preparing for retirement. We have the WWE Universe now heavily emotionally attached to HHH (even more so than before) and we have Brock Lesnar, who is one of the most powerful villains of all time. The only logical solution is for a rematch at Survivor Series, a match HHH will lose. At that point he’ll say he tried but failed to beat Brock Lesnar, and that no one can stop Lesnar.
Of course, there’s one all important WWE superstar waiting in the sidelines who will be less than pleased to hear HHH say that no one can beat Brock Lesnar. We’ll reveal who that superstar is on the next page as we take a look forward to Wrestlemania 29.