He legit grabbed the brass ring. Also thankfully HHH let him drop the Max Dupri shit. Dude also knows his character and just needed the right opportunity to showcase it. Also he is trustworthy when it comes to being creative with promos and segments, and probably has a decent amount of creative control because of it. Here's a pretty decent interview where he explains a few times where he went slightly off script but was told later he did the right thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2281GVObRt0 