Ahead of WrestleMania 41, Triple H gave a lengthy interview on WWE’s YouTube channel to discuss his career both as an in-ring performer and company executive.
During the interview, Triple H detailed his greatest accomplishments in the ring and behind the scenes along with the decision to give Jey Uso the main event spot, John Cena’s heel turn, things being leaked to news sites and when to ultimately draw the line and more!
On Triple H’s greatest accomplishment as an in-ring performer:
“Oh man, greatest accomplishment? I don’t know. It’s funny. I don’t think of it in that manner. I think I had this career that I was fortunate. First of all, yeah, you have to be driven, you have to want all those things, and you have to have a skill set and all that other stuff. But I was fortunate to be in a time where I was around some of the greatest people in the business, and I think about all the things that have gotten me where I am today, and they all sort of lead to this point, not just the career. So everybody that I had a chance to work with, everybody that had a chance to rub up against, everybody that a chance to sit next to and learn from, or sit under that learning tree from, was an incredible experience, but also led me because I got to see all sides of it. If I was to say what does that part of my career mean to me? It’s hard to really say, for me I got to live a dream. Anything that happened past me signing with WCW, if you said to go back and tell 14-year-old me or 13-year-old me that that’s going to happen, I say you’re out of your mind, right? Even though that’s what I was chasing, even though that’s in my mind. In WWE, you have to feel like you’re going to get there. You have to feel like you can do that. You have to have confidence in yourself, all those things, otherwise you’ll never get there. So even though I could look at it and say, I knew I would get there, I didn’t, and it’s mind blowing to the thing that I did. There’s a lot of things I’m proud of along the way, most of which don’t have that much to do with me performing or my career. If I was to say the Evolution time frame of helping to get Randy and Dave, they did the work, but helping them get there, being part of that, being there to witness them go from a young kid that all he could do was get in trouble in Randy, and a young guy that sort of seemingly by look had all the tools, but most people felt he’s never going to make it. To see them both become the massive stars and icons that they are in this business. To do that with Ric, who was my hero, and helping him find himself along the way. I look at that career and that’s certainly a highlight.”
On Triple H’s greatest accomplishment as an executive:
“Hasn’t happened yet. I learned a lot of things from Vince. Some of the things I learned from him, like he would say what could never be. You got to take the small wins along the way and be happy with those. But he’s the kind of guy that if you climbed Mount Everest, he’d be standing hasn’t even gone back down yet. As he’s getting the last 10 steps in that half hour, or whatever it takes, he’s looking around, is there anything higher than I could climb? Never fully enjoyed it. I like to think I was a little bit better at sort of enjoying the moment, but then going to the next thing. So for me as an executive, I never saw myself in particular roles of running things. I just was very much like the guys that I learned from coming up, Pat Patterson, I just love the business, and I just wanted to contribute to it. So if guys are putting something together, and I could help them come up with, hey, what about this? What about that? If you can collaborate, that’s when the product is the best. So if I could help guys get there, if I could help you help talent become something more, but yet I can still look at that stuff and say we were able to take what was sort of a developmental system, and it really wasn’t producing much. I don’t mean that as a knock to the people that were in it. It just didn’t have all the things that it needed to going in and saying, This is what I think we need to do to ensure the future of the business, and then being told like, All right, sounds good, go do it. But having no knowledge how to do that, creating, or working with a lot of people to create NXT, the relationship of Full Sail, the Performance Center itself, building that all out. When I think about the future, and even just sitting here looking at all these guys on the wall and these girls on the wall, I can remember Liv Morgan walking in first day, IYO, and IYO came from someplace else but Tiffany Stratton, Cody as a young guy just coming up the ranks, Montez and Dawkins having never stepped in the ring before, Charlotte having never stepped in the ring before. All these people. LA Knight was in it back then in the very beginning of it. Bron Breakker was working with his dad. Chelsea Green, one of the Tough Enough people, there’s so many people there, so many, so much came out of that. The ability for me at that time, even as I was doing that, to then sit in a different chair as now it’s my responsibility, but sitting next to Dusty, who’s a Learning Tree in and of itself, but totally different, because everybody has their own perspectives on this. None of it is right, none of it is wrong. You just have to pick the things that work for you and take those away and leave the things that don’t. Everybody has their strong suits and their negatives. I like to think for the most part, I know what I’m pretty good at, I know what I’m not good at, and then I try to build people that have strengths and utilise them for those strengths. So it’s all stuff like that, it’s this thing is such a big team and such a big wheel that just keeps on rolling. And to think that you were a part of it, in some way, to think that I could not only have the opportunity to do the thing that I like, the form of entertainment that I grew up as a kid watching and thought was the coolest sh*t I’d ever seen, that I got to do that, and then on top of that, got to help shape it, create it, work with a bunch of people, and hopefully leave it better than I found it. I think that’s at the end of the day, if you have a legacy for anything, I don’t know that you can ask for it to be more than that.”
Triple H Explains why now is the right time for Jey Uso to get the main event spot:
“Because people made it happen. Sometimes things happen organically along the way. They get you to where you want to be, and Jey through The Bloodline saga was sort of a linchpin in that storytelling, then goes off on his own. A lot of people question whether these guys, once they leave The Bloodline, once they leave Roman, once they leave Heyman, are they going to be anything more than a tag team that they already were, or are they going to just be what they were? Are they going to succeed and be anything more. You give them the opportunity to do all those things. Jey, when he had the opportunity to do it, would click on these moments. And at the end of the day, a lot of times, that’s what our business is just about. It’s about moments. A lot of people think, and there’s a lot of criticism of this, that it’s just the in-ring product. It’s just how technically good of a wrestler you are. Make me a list of the greatest performers in this business, and that list will be two-thirds people that were worse than the majority of the list of great workers that didn’t get to the top. Jey has great athletic ability, and the things he does in the ring, he does well. Is he the most technical guy here? No. Is he the greatest performer on the face of the earth in the ring? No. But he has a charisma and a likability that he lets people in and they want to see him succeed. So when you walk into a building with 10,000, 30,000 or 60,000 and he walks out and that whole place is doing his entrance with him, and is hanging on everything he does, and are hanging on his words and are hanging on his moments, right? That’s what it takes to be a top guy. It’s about box office, and Jey is proving what he said he was, which is “Main Event” Jey Uso, whether some people like that or not. There are people like Gunther that believe the in ring is what matters. So he’s either going to beat the entertainment out of Jey Uso or Jey Uso is going to survive all of that and prove that the box office is where it’s at. It’s his emotion. When he is in that crowd doing his entrance, you can see he’s not going through motions. He is in it with them. He’s in it with that kid that’s standing next to him, that’s doing that with him. He’s living for that moment, win, lose or draw at WrestleMania, that’s his moment, that connection with that crowd will be his moment and very few people have it. Again, go through some of the greatest in this business of all time. Very few people have a connection like that with a crowd. He just has it, and he’s on his own, able to show it. And at WrestleMania, we’ll see if he can put his money where his mouth is.”
On the John Cena heel turn:
“So in that moment when John turns, we kept that so quiet that on our side, three people on the exec team, from the writing staff knew. That’s it, me and two others. Nobody else knew. Cena knew, obviously. Cena didn’t even tell his wife. Cena didn’t tell his manager Cody knew. Cody told no one. So obviously Rock knew, and Travis sort of knew, but he was just being along for the ride. Doing exactly what they told him to do, which is, at some point, slap Cody. And he was slapping him, whether Cena wanted or not, Cena didn’t know about that part. So when we get to the end of the show, I have to tell everybody now, as we’re coming into that last minute of Elimination Chamber or something, okay, there’s aftermath on this. Everybody lay out. I’m directing traffic. I will call all of this and Marty, here’s how it’s going to go. I rattle off all this to Marty, kind of like shot for shot. But it’s fast, because we’re getting into the end of this match, and Marty’s like, holy sh*t. I’m like, I will walk you through it, because I’m still not saying on headset, ‘And then John’s going to turn on Cody.’ I’m leaving out details, so when we get there, I’m trying to be a fan and just feel it and as it comes in, then technically put it out to the truck of where we need to go, and hopefully be just ahead of it where we can all get it down. So it’s tough. Part of me wishes I could just go sit out there. I’m envious of Dana when I see him sit in a fight and then the finish happens. A guy gets knocked down Dana’s losing his [mind]. That surprise factor of holy sh*t, what a moment that was. And I can get a feel for it, but I can’t be out there. I can’t be in that crowd. I can’t feel that. I just have to mentally put myself out there and then sort of be in it. But it’s just a difficult process to produce and be a fan, but the only way to really, truly give people what they want is to put yourself in those seats and be a fan and really sit back and just try to approach it from a fan, then know where you’re going and avoid the criticisms. I don’t mean not listen to the criticism, you have to, because it helps guide the process. But at the same point in time, you have to hear the criticisms, but know where it’s going, and if you feel strongly about where it’s going right or wrong, then stay the course and hold tight. When everybody else is going turn the ship, and you’re like, No, no, no, we’re staying straight. Because you feel like you have information they don’t, and then you might hit an iceberg, but that’s the decision you make.”
On less stuff being leaked:
“We try, and there’s still where I’m like, we talk about something and the next day I see it. I’m like, What the? How? Who? I want to smack someone. How did this get out today? There are some sh*t that I see that I realize, okay, that’s accurate, but they’re just guessing, right? There’s five different ways they could have gone. By next week, it’ll be something else. The memo that came out that said Drew McIntyre was going to win the Elimination Chamber, and now everybody believes that’s what. Okay, great. Yeah, but setting yourself up for unbelievable expectations. I think about it like when Darth Vader said, I’m your father, right? Like, holy sh*t, imagine if a month before that had leaked out and was like, no, he’s really his dad and that ruins the whole concept of the movie for you. It’s so difficult to keep that stuff tight in the information age with the internet and things like that. So the Cea turn, the fact that nobody was saying, ‘And then John Cena turns heel.’”
On drawing the line on when to break the 4th wall:
“I think ruining it happens before, telling me after doesn’t ruin it. It tells me how it was made. There needs to be some distance. I don’t want to see the blooper reel playing. We’ve had challenges with this. Even here, there’s some things that, they put an ad in the show, and I’m like take that ad out of the show. You can’t show me that in the show. I had no problem last year when all the machinations of WrestleMania happened, and then the documentary version was going to come out, and it was going to come out slightly after WrestleMania, no problem. But then it was all the alternative versions of what actually happened and what didn’t happen. So it took a lot longer to come out than it really did. So truth is, when that comes out, now people have the argument, ‘Is that really what happened, or is that everybody’s version of what happened?’ They’ll make up their own. So one thing about our business, it’s all believably unbelievable. So they will make up their own bullsh*t versions of everything that happens, what’s happening on a daily basis. A memo came out that said this in the meeting, Triple H said that, or this person said this. This is where they’re going. They make up their own sh*t. It’s like we used to say this back in the day, like our business is set up where if you’re a fan, there’s no explanation needed. If you’re not a fan, there’s no explanation that will do, you can’t explain it to somebody that’s not a fan. They have to watch it and go I like that, because if you explain it to them, it just doesn’t sit, so it’s the challenge. I believe that we can tell them these things. It always makes me laugh, in this current day and age that old timers will do podcasts where they’re giving everything away from their generation of the business and saying how terrible it is that these kids don’t kayfabe today. So let me get this straight. You’re on a podcast telling everybody all the non-kayfabe stuff and then complaining that there’s no kayfabe today?”
On whether Triple H wishes that there was more secrecy in wrestling:
“I like where it is. I do. I’m a believer that when you see what we do on TV, all the mind-blowing stuff that you see, moments that just holy sh*t John Cena turning heel. There’s something just as fascinating, if not more so, of how that happened, how it came to be. I used to think this all the time. I’d walk in the arena, especially when I was coming to production meetings. I would get there early, and sometimes I’d walk in the building, they’d be just getting rolling on stuff. Everything would be on the floor. There’d be nothing rigged all this stuff. It would look like a war zone, wires everywhere, people running around like chickens where they had heads got off doing stuff. We’d go in this production meeting. I’d come out two hours later, all the sh*t would be up and I’d be like, Man, this is crazy. Like there’s oceans of wires and cables nobody sees. There’s all these things that happen that nobody sees. Criss Angel is a friend of ours. Went to see a show one time. Blew my mind, a spectacle, wonderful. At the end, he was like, ‘Hey, you want to come and see all the stuff?’ And I was like, No I don’t, Criss. You blew my mind, I don’t want to go downstairs, I’m sure it’s cool, but I don’t want to go see the sh*t that you just did and see how you did it. But he has a warehouse that I’ve been to where he has all his old stuff in there, and he showed me a lot of that that to me is incredibly fascinating. I didn’t want it to ruin what I just saw, but I love seeing all this behind the scenes of all this other stuff. I think that people sometimes when they look at just the surface of what we do, they can think it’s kind of silly, or it’s childish, or it’s less than or all these things. They don’t realize the work. How many people, whether the crew, the staff, the people that are on the road, the people that build the stuff, the people that are here that design the shirts, that do the things. All these people that do all this incredible work to pour their blood, sweat and tears, their heart, their soul, into creating this to entertain you for a moment, for that moment where you pop off your couch and go, Holy sh*t John Cena just punched him in the balls, and lose your mind. Those are the moments we all do this for. But it takes an army and it takes an incredible amount of work. So to me, I love the fact that we can go show [the fans]. That F1 series that is out. I was just talking to my nephew about this last night. He was at my house. He watches that show religiously. He’s never watched an F1 race. Doesn’t really care about the racing, but finds the show fascinating. But I bet you there are millions of people that have watched that show and that turned them on to racing and now they’re f1 fan, because of what it takes to get there. So if you don’t buy into the characters and their story, the real people and their story, of what it took to get there, the trials, the tribulations, the stress, The moments, the things, all the sh*t that it took to put that show out to make it happen. I can tell you, WrestleMania is just around the corner. Since the beginning of January, people have been focused on Wrestlemania, if not all year, but probably 90% of their day is spent on making WrestleMania week function, the amount of transportation, the talent, the logistics, the hotel rooms, the catering, the all the things that go into it that You don’t see any of it that’s just as fascinating as the product itself. So I love where we’re at.”
On The Rock:
“If you’re writing this show, this show is your responsibility, and somebody says, hey, the biggest star in the world, probably one of the most recognizable people on the planet, the biggest star in Hollywood, wants to come and do this stuff and be involved in this, it’s a pretty good thing, right? It brings so many eyeballs, it brings so much attention. And there’s a factor with him that is, he will say disruptive sh*t all the time. It’s unpredictable. If Rock shows up, you don’t know if he’s just going to go out there and cut a promo that you’re like, I don’t know what he just said, but it’s cool that he was here, but I’m confused, or if he’s going to get heavily involved and you’re like, well, this just threw a monkey wrench in the whole thing. You’re unsure, it’s a great place to be, right? And in these moments now, where you start to have somebody like The Rock involved, and I’m not saying this from a talking standpoint or anything else, but if business was the sh*ts, Rock wouldn’t be making appearances for us, right? So when the business is hot, people want to be in it and want to be around it. And right now, we’re fortunate and it’s hot, it’s our job to keep it there. Having it be that way brings The Rock, it brings Travis Scott, it brings Bad Bunny, it brings Jelly Roll. It brings Tony Hinchcliffe. It brings Andrew Schultz. It brings Tyrese Halliburton. It brings Jalen Brunson, it begins to bring all of these celebrities. It’s one of the things that we deal with. Seemingly daily, I get a call that says, hey, this person wants to come to the show. What will we do with them? And I’m like, get them tickets. I can’t make the show all about them. I’m thankful they want to be involved. If I have the right idea, we’ll plug them in, but I can’t force stuff to include people. But that is the beauty of what we want to do. We’re not just having people come in because they got a show they want to promote, or something like that, which is great, too. Right now, it’s just people want to be in the show and be a part of the show and be a part of this. It’s a cultural movement. It’s a part of the Zeitgeist right now. It’s such a big thing that’s happening. Like the moment of John Cena turning heel, I laughed and told the story the other day. You know my mother in law, Linda, called me at a State of the Union that week, as she’s walking out, the press is all shouting questions, and the one person shouts at her, Linda, I’m curious, as the Secretary of Education, what do you think about John Cea turning heel? That is the news moment, right? It was everywhere. It was top story on sports center. It was top story. Stephen A was talking about it, Shannon Sharpe, everybody in the world talking about it. When you’re in that zone, it’s a pretty good place to be, and everybody wants to be a part of it. So it’s wonderful to wonderful problem to have. So he can come call himself Final Boss all day long. I love it.”
Featured image: WWE
