WWE has restructured its post-shows, with SummerSlam night 1 being the first to follow the new format.
Following the conclusion of the August 2 main card, which saw Seth Rollins end the night as World Champion after cashing in his Money in the Bank contract on CM Punk, footage from the aftermath aired before cutting to the panel of Joe Tessitore, Big E and Peter Rosenberg. Throughout the 1 hour 20 broadcast, Triple H and multiple stars joined the panel to speak about the events that occurred on the Premium Live Event and answered questions from the panelists.
However, unlike previous events, there was no press conference for the stars and Triple H to answer questions from the media and social media influencers. During the broadcast, Tessitore noted that this would be the “new format” moving forward, signalling that the post-show press conferences are no more.
WWE Post-Show Press Conferences Appeared To Have Come To An End
The nature of previous press conferences involving the media have been met with a mixed response from fans over the years. While on one hand, many of the questions have been straightforward for the wrestlers to answer in character or give a media-friendly response, others questions have been heavily mocked on social media. A notable example of this was when IYO SKY was asked about potentially fighting Taylor Swift at WrestleMania, despite the fact that Swift had not referenced WWE nor was brought up in any storylines, leaving SKY and many baffled by the bizarre question.
A much more serious moment of infamy during the WWE press conferences occurred in early 2024 at the Royal Rumble, which also took place a couple of days after Vince McMahon resigned from WWE due to allegations of sexual assault. With this being Triple H’s first appearance in front of the media since the news broke, the topic was brought up. When asked if he had read the lawsuit, the Chief Content Officer responded that he had not and wanted to instead focus on the positives:
I did not. I did not. Cody mentioned it, we all found out real time when you were. That’s the truth. I’ll go back to what I said before. It’s an amazing week for us. I don’t even want to get bogged down in the negatives of it. I just want to focus on the positives and where we’re going. We’re at the most exciting time of the year for us and the most exciting point, to me, business-wise, that we’ve ever had.”
Featured image: WWE
