He was protective of his spot. An ego getting the best of you = protective of your spot. Not hating on Austin or HHH at all, Undertaker also had a habit of doing this too at the time, so I'm not just picking on those 2.
Not neccesserily. You can have a big ego but not generally be over protective or paranoid. If Austin was worried about someone taking his place or spot? He wouldn't have been so accepting of The Rock who as I already said, the only guy who rivalled Austin.
However he might have been worried about being made to look too weak or bad. That's why his ego proberly got the best of him, for example with Brock Lesnar who was only a new wrestler making a name for himself at the time and was not a main eventer. You don't just go from squashing jobbers and mid-carders to beating the NO.1 guy in the business. You got to work your way up. He proberly felt unhappy with that idea because (1)Lesnar hadn't fought a main eventer before he was supposed to beat Austin and (2)He hadn't proved himself. if I recall it was the same reason why Austin refused to put HHH over I think in 1999 before HHH's fued with Mick Foley because he felt HHH was not ready.
I guess you don't know the history of the Kliq huh? All of them are very well known for being protective of their spots, the only reason Hall and X-Pac didn't get as far as the other members because drug/alcohol problems kept them down.
I know about the Kliq, and like I said, in HHH's early years he might have been a little protective because as I said the wrestling business tends to be very competitive. Guys are always trying to become breakout stars, so you have a lot of competition. But just for example, when HHH came into the business he was being groomed to become a big star. But then Stone Cold debuted in the WWE and started becoming a star as well, and eventually ended up bypassing HHH(proberly due to the Curtain Call Incident) and winning the World Championship. Then Mick Foley also debuted in the WWE too and started becoming a star and bypassed HHH too because he won the World Championship. Finally you have The Rock, he came into the business, and it's common knowledge about how HHH and HBK didn't like The Rock and how they treated him. But Rock started becoming hugely popular after he turned heel and joined the Nation, and by 1998 he bypassed HHH too, and ended up winning the title. So you see HHH had a lot to contend with. My point is though, HHH was always competiting with them for the top spot. He wanted nonthing more then to become a World Champion and so he proberly was protective of his spot in his early years. But I don't really recall any incidents back then where HHH might have looked over protective because as far as I remember, he's always been the guy who paid his dues. Fpr example he was the only one to get punished for the Curtain Call Incident. But after he became a World Champion I don't think so. He had no real competition because between 1999 and 2002 the only guys he was competiting with were already in the Main Event. After that he was already a huge star and had nothing to worry about.
They rekindled their rivalry, the feud wasn't going on for a full year. There's a difference between a rivalry and a feud. A rivalry means they could have more than just 1 feud with each other, like Kane/Undertaker for example. If they had feuded for like more than 4 or 5 months without a break feuding with other people then you can call it a long feud.
A rivalry can also be if their fued never stopped and continued to have bad blood between each other but haven't actually fought as much E.G The Rock and Chris Jericho. Austin had bad blood with HHH from the time of the car accident. He showed this when Asutin returned at Backlash and screwed HHH over for the title against The Rock. When he returned their was still bad blood between them, but because HHH was busy with Kurt Angle and Rock he focused his effort on them moreso while Austin was busy trying to find out who ran him over. Then it was revealed that Rikishi and HHH were involved in Austin getting run over, and that just made it worse because now they destined to fight.
Stephanie was part of the booking team in late 2000, him and Steph were starting to go together (in reality as well, not just storyline anymore), HHH was part of the booking meetings at the time. Because of these three things I fail to see how HHH was forced to come back so early.
Yeah HHH and Steph had a relationship but that dosen't mean HHH had any say in those booking meetings or that his relationship got him more leveage. This is just the same old stuff you hear about how the only reason HHH is in the position he's in, is because he's married to the bosses daugther. At the end of the day, as far as HHH goes, he could never out politic Austin, The Rock or Undertaker. Not to mention that Vince McMahon oversees everything so he would have to allow it either. The finish of Surivor Series would be entirely up to Vince McMahon, not Steph.
Anyway it still can be considered just one of the booking flaws WWE had at the time.
HHH already had a lot of stroke by late 2000, the only difference was since he wasn't the biggest star in the company he wasn't able to use it to the fullest like he did in later years.
A lot of main eventers have a degree of stroke in the company. The Rock, Austin and Undertaker had it too. Hogan had it, Shawn Micheals had it, Bret Hart had it before the Montreal Screwjob and even today I reckon Cena has stroke too. As far as using it to the fullest in later years, well it's still down to speculation as to whether he did use his storke or not.
