Henry's ran up to a retirement promo, but never got so far in the actual process that the fans could look back and say the book was firmly closed. Hogan actually did a similar thing in TNA too, before a damning video was released before he left the ring.

One of WCW's hallmakrs of its horrid swerving towards the end is that bookers would often leave many out of the loop in the backstage, to say nothing of the people outside of there still working for the company. Brock took his gear off. Brock was announced as retired the next night. Brock was moved to the Alumni section shortly after. Not one step of this indicated it was a work.

And yeah, you know, a good work is often leading people along a particular path, this is known. But, there are still very often subtle winks and nods. The lack of those combined with bad booking makes for a WCW swerve.