Triple H On His WWE Live Event Appearances, Losing NXT Stars To The Main Roster, Shawn Michaels
Triple H spoke with USA Today's "For the Win" section on a number of wrestling topics. Here are some of the highlights:
His recent overseas WWE live event appearances:
"It was one of those things that on a Saturday I was at an event at my kid's school, and two hours later on I was on a plane to Santiago, Chile. Whatever [the flight] is, 12 hours later, I was headed to the arena putting my gear on, going 'What am I doing?' And then in Europe and the whole thing. What it has done though is, it's been a really cool experience. In the past few years when I've had the opportunity to get in the ring, it's been always based around WrestleMania and the pressures of, like saying 'I know you haven't thrown a baseball all season, but it's Game 7 tomorrow, World Series. We need you to pitch in Yankee Stadium.' It's a lot of pressure.
It's really cool to have an opportunity for a little bit of a change. As difficult as it is [physically] ? you can work out in the gym all day long, it's totally different from being in the ring. To be able to go to these live events with these guys that I, you know, a lot of them I had a hand in them coming through the system, and remember that 'Hey, this is fun.' One night I'm working with Rusev, the next night I'm going up twerking with the New Day, the next night I'm in the ring with the Shield. I heard a lot of fan comments when we were there, people say 'It's really cool, this is so special.' They have no idea how special it's been for me."
Restocking NXT when Superstars get called up to the main roster:
"Yeah, but that's the nature of the beast. It's funny, you can look at those things in two ways of either 'Ah I built this and now it's gone, bummer.' Or 'Oh man, we did this, now it's gone. There's a huge opportunity to make something even better.' I feel like, in some ways, that's part of the secret sauce to NXT. It's just always evolving. There's always something new.
You know, just when Asuka's at the peak... boom, she's gone. A year earlier, when the women's roster almost all got called up at the same time from NXT, just got strip mined ? Asuka was kind of the focal point of that. She rode that out as this dominant champion, but yet while doing that, this whole group of women evolved around her. Ember Moon, Kairi Sane, Ruby Riot, Nikki Cross, Peyton and Billie, Sonya Deville. Just all these women that got this opportunity to grow, and a chance, and they gave us the chance to write different directions.
Does it take some time? Yeah. Does it take a rebuilding? Yeah. Does it give us a bump in the road where people just saw a huge event and it was awesome, then they tune in six weeks later and they go 'who are these people?' Yeah, but that's the cool part of it, to me. I like that challenge. It's exciting that we always have to be thinking about the mix of experienced talent and brand new talent. When you look at SAnitY, you see some of the talent that are in there? yeah there's Eric Young in there, but then there's Alexander Wolfe and Killian Dain ? brand new. There's Authors of Pain, who have only a couple of years in the business. Andrade Almas, having done stuff other places but coming into his own with us. Lars Sullivan, that's a homegrown [talent]. Velveteen Dream, a young guy just getting the first platform anywhere. There's that mix of Aleister Black, bringing in his years of experience, yet while still learning. It's just a really cool mix in NXT always trying to have that balance, and I think that's part of the magic of the brand."
Shawn Michaels getting more involved with NXT talent:
"He kind of came into the picture like 'Yeah, let me see, maybe I'll come by and stick my nose in.' And he's all in now. These kids? I say it all the time, especially for the guys who have been around the business a long time. Going to the Performance Center is like going to the fountain of youth. It's inspiring. There's 100 talent down there that are hungry and busting their ass and in the gym and in the ring. ... Shawn went down there ? and I think like many people do, they go down there, they see it, and it's infectious. He got bit by the bug again. And he's like 'man, I love this, I want to be involved more.' Then it was 'Hey, I think I might go on the live event this weekend.' And then 'I think I'm going to go on this out-of-state tour.' Now he's doing all kinds of stuff."
You can read the full interview by clicking here.
Source: USA Today