Triple H officially retires from wrestling

I have a few favorites of all time when it comes to wrestling and one of the people at the top of my lists is always HHH. There was just something about him through most of his career that just captivated me going all the way back to the DX days.

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Let's start with his ring entrance or more so, the evolution of it. He had great entrance music over the years and as far as I know there were 3 of them, all of which were awesome and I think the best one was "Time to Play the Game!" which was performed by another legend, Lemmy from Motörhead.

It's such a simple thing, but the spitting of the water into the air during a certain part of the song right before he entered the ring during a really awesome part of the song worked so well and even if you didn't like HHH, you liked this intro.

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He was fantastic as an in-ring worker and although I preferred him as a heel and I think most other people did as well, he did just fine as a babyface also. His microphone skills were pretty great too and the storylines that were built around his relationship with Vince McMahon and Stephanie, who he is married to in real life, were normally pretty entertaining as well.

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Many fans would argue that HHH got preferential treatment because of his relationship with the boss' daughter and those people are almost certainly correct, but at least he was really good at his job. I think the only thing that I didn't really like about Hunter's program was his finishing move "The Pedigree" which I always thought was kind of lame.

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He suffered a lot of injuries throughout the years and in a very impressive fashion, he never quit in any of these matches and would talk to his in ring opponent to finish the match even though in one instance he had completely torn a pectoral muscle which is not something I have ever done but I'm sure it isn't nice let alone pleasant to finish a very physically demanding event in spite of. In another match he tore his quadricep and still finished the match and tried to make it look like he wasn't in horrible pain, when he had to be helped out of the arena to the back, this was not a planned part of the match, Hunter could barely walk and was in huge amounts of pain.

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HHH's real name is actually Paul Levesque, but like most wrestlers, he went through a number of personas while he figured out a character that was going to work for him. HHH was an excellent character and one that has seen championship gold 14 times. There are only handful of wrestlers that have had the belt more times than this.

He is also 52 years old, which isn't exactly a time to hit the retirement home, but if you are a fan you know that he hasn't seen much actual wrestling action in the past few years and has stuck to microphone work and also was a major player behind the scenes as a creative director. I find it really sad when legendary wrestlers remain in the business beyond their prime as so many have done and continue to do. It's sad to see your childhood heroes deteriorate physically and mentally but it happens to so many of them. Ric Flair being a prime example: Dude can't retire because he spent his whole life being financially irresponsible.

Though he has suffered dozens of injuries that would end most people's careers quite some time ago, HHH always made his way back to the gym, did physical therapy, and would make a glorious return every now and then. However, it was reported that he started having cardiac issues including a minor heart attack last year and this is something that one should be a lot more concerned about than tearing a muscle.

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He's already in the WWE Hall of Fame, and there is no doubt that he will be forever remembered as one of the greatest the sport has ever seen. He is going to continue working in the creative department, but he announced that his days as an in-ring performer are behind him. He has very real heart problems and even has a defibrillator inside of his body because of it.

It's been a great ride and he will be impossible to replace. At least he is going to go out on his own terms and doesn't just keep the train going in order to make money like so many legends before him have done. Of course being a member of the McMahon empire means that he probably won't ever need to worry about money, so I guess that's a good thing.

Bye bye HHH, you will be missed.