Triple H details the health issues he has been dealing with the past several months and announces he’s retiring from in-ring competition.
On Friday, Triple H posted a statement explaining that he would appear on Friday’s new episode of Stephen A’s World on ESPN+ to talk about his health and his future. A clip of that interview aired on Friday’s episode of First Take, and “The Game” confirmed details about his health scare in September.
Triple H confirmed he had viral pneumonia, and symptoms included coughing up blood, inflamed lungs and fluid surrounding his heart. He then spoke about how serious things got after he was admitted to the hospital, explaining that his ejection fracture (the measurement of the percentage of blood leaving your heart each time it contracts) was at a seriously low number and dropping.
“They followed up on it and did an [echocardiogram] and an EKG, and the way your heart pumps out, [it’s] about 55-60 of your ejection fracture, which is a good number. I was at 30. I got a quick text message saying ‘Don’t take time, pack a bag and head to the emergency room. I’ll fill you in on the way.’ So by the time I got to the emergency room, my ejection fracture had gone down to 22, which I was in heart failure, bad. By the next morning,” he explained, “they were sending me in to get an MRI done and I went for a heart cath and my ejection fracture was at a 12. So I was nosediving and sort of at the 1-year-line of where you don’t want to be, really, for your family and your future.
“Let me tell you, you’re at 99%, and it gets real. We have three young girls, [age] 15, 13, 11, and suddenly I come home and I’m a little bit sick. Their dad, who is strong, always, suddenly is in the hospital — and I don’t know if they understood the consequences of it — but there’s moments in there where they’re putting you out for stuff when you think, ‘Do you wake up from this?’ It’s tough to swallow and makes you think differently, as I’m sure you do as you [Stephen A. Smith] come out of your COVID scare. It makes you think differently about life. It doesn’t make you any less driven about the things that you do,” Triple H noted, “but it certainly makes you appreciate the things that you have, your friends, your family.”
Smith asked what the future holds for Triple H as a competitor, and he said that he is done competing in the ring.
“For me, as far as in-ring, which I get a lot, I’m done. No, I will never wrestle again. First of all, I have a defibrillator in my chest, probably not a good idea to get zapped on live TV.”
Triple H serves as executive producer of NXT, as well as Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development and COO for WWE. His final match was a tag team match win with Shinsuke Nakamura against Robert Roode and Samoa Joe that took place at a WWE live event in Tokyo, Japan on June 29, 2019. Prior to that, his final televised match (and final singles match) was a loss to Randy Orton at WWE Super ShowDown on June 7, 2019.
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