16 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Triple H
2. The Racism
Because it's not a singular incident, angle or promo.
It'd be one thing to lean on something as serious as the 1998 Nation Of Domination parody promo cut by DX in blackface, but there would be those arguing that a value judgment made in the present doesn't fully reflect some of the deeply flawed (or at very least questionable) values of the past. It'd be another - and a massive one at that - to reference the infamously terrible WrestleMania XIX build and match against Booker T. This wasn't about promos, storyline beats or the end payoff ageing badly, but acts and gestures that were chastised at that time for unacceptable prejudices. The time it took 'The Game' to make the cover at the show itself has become the story rather than how they got there, fortuitously for Paul Levesque. It'd be another to highlight the use of the Iron Cross in his iconography for decades. It'd be yet more to highlight the bigoted micro-aggressions that have resurfaced time and time again.
The patterns repeat themselves. It's not something he's shaken off.
As the singular creative force there to take the credit and the blame 2022-present, he's yet to be pushed back on one of his favourite but somewhat questionable booking techniques - grouping people of similar ethnic backgrounds into teams and stables. The hypothesis is imperfect because there are of course groups where overlaps occur - as there should be at a bare minimum! - but that there's once again enough examples supporting the accusation is problematic enough.
Not that Triple H sees it that way...