Quoth Triple H (Sympathy For the Devil, Smackdown 2/25/16)

Image Source: wwe.com

“…but what’s puzzling you is the nature of my GAME.” —Rolling Stones, “Sympathy For the Devil”

While I can’t say I’m giddy with anticipation over the upcoming HHH/Roman Reigns championship match at Wrestlemania, I have been spellbound by the treatise Trips has been whipping together about the authority’s oppression of the ninety-nine percent, the heroic rebel’s challenge to this tyrannical authority, and his assertion that corporate executives are in fact gods and devils and that a floundering corporate entity is a religion. I mean, how about that? He’s standing on a soapbox before a crowd of angry populace like a man in the process of orchestrating a military coup d’etat amidst, after which he will install himself as a not-so-benign dictator who ruthlessly persecutes society’s rebels and nonconformists. 

I’m just saying. Could Trips be in the process of sticking around St. Petersburg because he sees it is a time for change? 

Anyway, all this as we trek along with our thumbs out along this long-ass lonely road of faith that leads to Wrestlemania. I already transcribed one of his promos earlier in February, in which he made a bold case for WWE as religion and Vince McMahon as God, like a true politician. The promo here came a couple weeks later, as he orated a speech riffing off the Rolling Stones classic “Sympathy For the Devil”, demonstrating incredibly that he himself has been playing a very “it’s heads, it’s tails, just call me Lucifer” character all these years right under our noses. Our Cerebral Assassin is all over that song, if you care to do some willful misinterpretation. Consider, for example, this stanza in terms of the Triple H narrative:

I rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

In other words:

Take a deeper plunge into these lyrics if you’re interested—you can imagine some memorable epoch of HHH’s storied career in almost every stanza.

The interesting thing about the devil in this song is that he’s not some red imp with horns and a pitchfork, dancing around a lake of fire tormenting folks who got too naughty. The devil Trips is claiming as his inspiration is one who insinuates himself unseen into unstable situations and waits for his opportunity to ascend to power. If you look for this as a HHH modus operandi you can see it in almost everything he does, both in kayfabe and shootville. In fact, the very way these promos weave into the narrative is another example of him trolling the WWE power structure for his opportunity to decimate anyone in order to steal the throne:

 

Please allow me to introduce myself: I’m a man of wealth and taste. I been around for a long long year and lay many a man’s soul to waste.” Rolling Stones, Sympathy For the Devil. Could have been written about me. Am I the devil? Maybe. Just depends on who you ask. But I do know this—if Roman Reigns forgot who I am, well, there’s no doubt in his mind now. If Roman Reigns forgot, and thought there would be no retribution for attacking me a few months ago, well then, after Monday Night RAW, there is no doubt in Roman Reigns’ mind any longer.

[breaks for a recap of Triple H beating Roman Reigns’ face to a fake bloody pulp and then pile drove him on the steel steps]

And if Roman didn’t remember when he was lying here on the floor in a puddle of his own blood on Monday night, then on Tuesday morning, when he was lying on an ice cold operating table waiting to get his shattered nose surgically repaired, I’m pretty sure it dawned on him then.

[a photo of Roman Reigns with a bandaged nose appears on the screen]

Yep. That’s the look right there. That’s the look of a man who knows his place. That is the look of a man who has been humbled. See, I guess, I don’t know, maybe a little bit of it is my fault, I get it, it’s a little bit confusing. The suit, the tie the boardrooms, the corporate role, it can be confusing you know, but make no mistake about it, I am the law here, I am the authority, and I understand that, I understand that because it’s human nature to want to buck authority, to want to challenge that law, to want to rebel against authority. Hell, I’ve even been there one time myself. But the thing is, you can’t beat authority. You can’t do it, Roman Reigns can’t do it, and the thing is you all know you can’t do it either, if you search inside yourself you know it’s the truth. You get up every day and you want to buck that system, but you don’t, you bow your head you go to work, you do your job, you know your place, you bow to authority. So this goes out to Roman Reigns, it goes out to all of you, it goes out to anyone who can hear my voice. If you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste. Use all your well earned politics, or I will lay your soul to waste. Roman Reigns wants to be the WWE World Heavyweight Champion more than anything in the world. It takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to be the WWE champion. I’ve had to walk over a lot of people to get where I am. Those blood and sweat and tears that we all pay, well, Roman’s got the sweat down, Roman works hard, and trust me when i say I’ve been in the ring with him, he’s good, he’s damn good. And then as far as the blood goes, well, I’ve got the blood.

[shows his wrist tape from the night from the onscreen clip, it’s covered in fake blood]

I’ve got that part covered for you Roman. And as far as the last one goes, I’ll get the last one. I’ll get it at Wrestlemania. AT&T Stadium, in front of the largest crowd in history, Roman Reigns, you will look across that ring at me and I will humble you. I will tear your dreams out from underneath you, and I will get those tears Roman. I will get those tears and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it, because I am the law. I am the Authority. I am the Cerebral Assassin. Because I am the king of kings, because I am the game! And because I am the WWE world heavyweight champion. Because I am that damn good.

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