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WWE Legend Triple H Announces Retirement From Wrestling

For 30 years, Paul Levesque, better known as “The Game” Triple H, captivated wrestling fans around the world with his in-ring ability, sophomoric sense of humor, and larger-than-life persona. Today, however, the wrestling world is forced to say goodbye to one of WWE‘s biggest stars, as Triple H announced his retirement from in-ring competition in an interview with Stephen A Smith.

Back in September of 2021, Levesque experienced a life-threatening cardiac event. Then, for almost half a year, Triple H disappeared from the spotlight completely. The only thing fans were told was that the incident was “very, very, very serious.”

Thankfully, we now know Triple H is alive and well. However, the WWE legend now suffers from what will be lifelong consequences of experiencing heart failure.

In the interview with Stephen A, Levesque said, “I had viral pneumonia. My lungs were inflamed, and as the next couple of days went on and I got home, it got increasingly worse. My wife [chief brand officer of WWE Stephanie McMahon] saw some blood and stuff that I was coughing up, and I went and got checked.”

Triple H Reveals the Reason Behind His Retirement

Unfortunately, the doctor’s visit didn’t go quite as well as everyone hoped. On the contrary, Triple H’s health continued to decline until he was in a dire situation.

“It was coming from the viral pneumonia, but I had fluid in my lungs,” Levesque said. “I had some fluid around my heart so they followed up on it and did an EKG and Echo and everything. Basically, the way your heart pumps out, 55-60 percent of your ejection fraction is a good number. I was at 30 percent.”

Upon learning of his failing heart, Triple H’s doctor urged him to come to the hospital immediately. “I got a quick text message saying ‘Don’t take time, pack a bag real quick and head to the emergency room and I’ll fill you in on the way.’ So, by the time I got to the emergency room, my ejection fraction had gone down to 22 percent, which, ya know, I was in heart failure.”

With tears in his eyes, Triple H, a father of three, recounted being inches from death. The miracle of modern medicine saved the Superstar, however, who now has a defibrillator in his chest.

Sadly, this means he will never again step through the ropes of the squared circle for a wrestling match. That said, there’s a (second) place in the WWE Hall of Fame with Triple H’s name on it. That being the case, we have no doubt that the icon’s legendary entrance theme “The Game,” performed by Motorhead, will play at least once more before it’s all said and done.