WWE SummerSlam 2012 Results: Triple H Can Call It a Career

In the world of professional wrestling, the end of the road is not always spelled out.  Things can happen in and out of the ring that curtail a career and, for better or for worse, one man can be forced to hang up his boots before he really intends to say he is done.

Triple H needs to make no such claim.

A wrestler-turned executive challenged Brock Lesnar, a wrestler-turned former UFC Heavyweight Champion, to a fight.  At no point during the buildup to this match was it ever referred to as a wrestling match.  This was to be a brawl, a mutual assault between two men whose personal vendettas reached a point that even the Staples Center could barely contain.  Two arms were broken before HHH and Lesnar even faced off.  Family members were threatened.  Two men pummeled each other for nearly a half hour and one simply beat the other into submission.

Brock Lesnar overpowered Triple H.  Despite targeting Lesnar's stomach, weakened over the years by a history of medical issues, Triple H could not inflict enough pain on the bigger man to stop the inevitable.  While everyone thought Shawn Michaels would make an appearance and have an effect on the ending of the match, something much simpler happened.

"You tapped out."

In case HHH had forgotten what Lesnar did to him minutes prior, the Staples Center, basking in the afterglow of satiated blood lust, reminded a man who had just given us the last of himself of his decision.  Broken to the point of tears, HHH apologized to the crowd and walked out of the arena under his own will.

If HHH never wrestles again, he has already made one of the biggest impacts on professional wrestling and will continue to do so for decades.

Here is a fact (and I apologize for resorting to "real names"): Paul Levesque (aka HHH), age 44, is in charge of WWE talent and has become very hands-on with the developmental roster at NXT.  He has an office in Stamford and three daughters. 

He has left pints of blood in the ring.  He did not need to step back into the ring again after his potential Match of the Year against The Undertaker, but he chose to do so against Lesnar.  It is a shame that there are some out there who will never give the man the due respect he deserves because he maneuvered his way to the top, married the boss's daughter, backstage politics, Kliq, blah blah blah. 

None of that has anything to do with a man who eats, sleeps and dreams about wrestling and has given everything he has to making sure that WWE remains at the very top.

Triple H has told many an epic story inside a wrestling ring, and I will be damned if last night's battle against the beast known as Lesnar was not one of his best.