Triple H On If He Can Face Brock Lesnar At Extreme Rules, New Training Center, More
Triple H recently took a second to talk with Brian Fritz of Between the Ropes about the opening of the new performance center in Orlando. Here are some highlights from the interview.
How long it's taken to get to this point: "Well we've had a developmental system and it's been kind of growing over the years but when I took this over a few years ago and it was one of my biggest things. Like I said earlier today, the superstars are the future of what we do. That's our one IP, it's our one product. It's what all of what we do is based on and it's creating new. It's the future. It's what we have to do. So to me, it's the biggest thing we do. I come at it from an in ring performer standpoint, so for me it's everything we are. When I looked at it I thought we are not, as a company, doing all we should be doing to create that and that started this vision. Then as we were kind of walking down that road we got to meet the folks at Full Sail and Gary and Ed and everybody and created that relationship and it's just blossomed from there. Creating the long term relationship with them allowed us to do this three miles down the road. It's all synergistic with each other and I think it's, you have visions of where you want to go in the future. You kind of have to change them as you go, but so far it's kind of gone down a path that I think, I hate to say it's what I was planning or it's what the WWE was planning, but it really is. We've kind of ended up in that place and we're really excited about it because it is a giant step for us in securing the future of our industry."
If he has anything more he wants to do with WWE developmental: "Well for me, one of the ideas is no matter where we go or what we do in addition to this, this for me would be the hub. If you were any place on the globe, wanting to get to the WWE, your destination of where you want to get to get there should be Orlando and to this facility. No matter what we do, [for example] when we go to England, we're doing it now, this Monday we're in London for TV, we'll be looking at talent there when we're Europe. You know, if there are people that we think have the ability then we work on bringing them here and we'll be working on bringing them to Orlando to train here. It truly is global and it's bringing them from everywhere, but this will be the hub. I can guarantee that."
What the recruiting process is like and how the facility will help: "Well, I think it helps tremendously. I'll just go through amateur athletics here. If you're talking to a kid that's maybe in the NFL or has just left the NFL, he wants to be in the WWE or he's looking to end his NFL career, he wants to be in the WWE. He's played his whole life, played football but been a big fan, got a larger than life personality, great fit for us, but he's been to a major high school in a major football program. He's trained in a D1 college. He went from a D1 college to a pro team where he was playing for the Giants and playing in the Timex Center, let's just say. He leaves that. Walking in the door here, and I've been all over the US to those training facilities, walking in the door here will be equivalent to walking into any training facility. You have to keep that level of what you are and the WWE is a massive global entertainment promotion. When you look at what we do with Wrestlemania, it's a Superbowl, it really is. We just did Wrestlemania in New York New Jersey. 80000 people. We'll do hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact. It's massive. 300+ global shows a year seen in 150 countries. All of it. This facility now, walking in the door, rivals anything else on the planet for training and when you walk in here you know you're in a first class organization, top to bottom."
How his arm is doing following the Lesnar match: "It's good. Unfortunately I'm supposed to be wearing a splint on my hand and should have been wearing when I put the hammer through the wall. I wish I had been a few minutes ago. It's good. I have nothing broken in there. I just have a lot of swelling in my hand and it's just going to take a couple weeks to get the swelling up."
If he'll be good to go in a couple weeks against Lesnar again: "I should be, yeah. I should be."
You can listen to the whole interview above.