HHH and The Curtain Call

Do you think that his "punishment" is just bullshit that the WWE has made up after the fact? Because, other than not winning the 96 King of the Ring, what was the punishment, exactly? The curtain call happened in May of 96, he won the IC Title 4 months later, which still meant quite a lot back then, lost it to a guy that they clearly had big plans for in Rocky Maivia after a decently long reign, won the blowoff to his feud with Goldust clean at Mania 13, won King of the Ring in June 97, and then started DX in September, at which point it was onwards and upwards for him. Even if he was on TV every Monday jobbing between June and October of 96, that was back when they only had an hour. He would have still been a featured guy every week, and most guys would kill for that kind of exposure nowadays. Doesn’t really seem like much of a burial to me. What gives?

​Uh, you kind of skipped over the entire burial in your description. Him winning the title in October WAS the end of it. You don’t consider him going out and doing literal squash jobs to guys like Sid for five months to be enough of a punishment​? Also, by that definition, Barry Horowitz was a "featured guy" every week. This argument is NO BUYS.