WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to discuss various topics, including his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Triple H said, “It’s crazy to think that you get to the point in your career and that you get to the point where you’re old enough to go into the Hall of Fame, right? You still feel young, but you’re like, nah, I’m old. I was [surprised by the news.] I run the creative for WWE, so in the last few years I’ve been like, I’m not putting myself in the Hall of Fame. We had planned for Hall of Fame this year for other people and we were at a town hall where I was talking to our, WWE is about 800 employees or so, and doing a town hall and it’s all business stuff with WWE President Nick Kahn and at the very end of this, all of a sudden now walk out Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker, and I’m thinking like, damn, I should have probably read this format better. Like what? What’s gonna go down right now? No idea. They were coming out there and, they started, I was very confused, and then they started to get into the Hall of Fame and I was like, oh man, they got me. To be inducted or to have it be done that way by two guys, Shawn’s my best friend and the Undertaker’s just one of the biggest legends and one of the guys that I respect the most in the industry. It was just very meaningful.”
On his Wrestlemania debut against The Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania 12:
“Actually, it’s a funny thing for me. This is my first WrestleMania that I would compete in, and for a lot of people, they think this is a almost an embarrassing moment in my career for me, where I was basically squashed in a couple of minutes by The Ultimate Warrior. But for me, one, it was my first WrestleMania, and two, the Ultimate Warrior is one of the biggest stars ever in the WWE. So when they came to me and said, you’re gonna get to work with the Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania, I was just out of my mind excited and that to me is one of my greatest memories of just it being…it’s like going to the Super Bowl and, yeah, you got to throw against [Tom] Brady or something like that. It was just such a great experience for me and I enjoyed it immensely.”
On meeting The Rock for the first time, and both of them getting top executive roles in WW:
“Yeah. It’s really crazy. I remember meeting Dwayne for the first time and just thinking, ‘God, this guy is… just his charisma is off the charts. If they can, if he’s at all’…I guess I just met him backstage. ‘If he’s at all athletic he’s gonna be a huge star’ and, not only becomes a huge star as the Rock and WWE, but would go on to be the biggest box office attraction in Hollywood ever. What’s really cool about it is all these years later, that was like ’96, all these years later, he and I are still collaborating on things and working together behind the scenes to make WWE as great as it can be. For him, it’s in his blood. His grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, his mother was a promoter. His dad was a wrestler, Rocky Johnson. It’s in his blood, it’s in his DNA. I make a joke with him all the time when he would do the People’s Elbow, which I took every night while he was kicking my ass. He would stand over you and as he was getting ready to do the run, you would see him break out in goosebumps all over him, Because the energy and the electricity that come from a live crowd in WwE is like nothing else. And I say to him all the time, you can’t get that in Hollywood, man. No. When he comes out now, he still does a thing where he’ll hit his arm and show it to the camera. because it’s covered in goosebumps and that energy, that electricity that our fans bring to what we do and we give back to them. It’s just, it’s magic. It’s nothing else.”
On Wrestlemania 41:
“They say everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but with us, everything that happens in Vegas that weekend will be heard worldwide. John Cena, who is the ultimate good guy and has been, his whole mantra, his entire career, hustle, loyalty, respect he has just been the ultimate good guy, as a human being, has done more wishes for Make-A-Wish than any other celebrity in history, but the challenge on this is he’s in his retirement run. He will end his career in-ring Career in December with WWE, so he’s got this years as farewell and he came back and turned into a bad guy in our business. He turned heel and he beat the crap out of Cody Rhodes with the Rock and with Travis Scott, and they beat the crap outta Cody Rhodes, and it’s amazing to see that transformation of John from like the most beloved character in WWE to just Darth Vader, that they hate him and and he is. Working very hard to to make them hate him. So it’s good.”
You can check out Triple H’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to PWInsider.com for transcribing the above quotes)
