WWE President Nick Khan appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast this week to promote WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While on the popular program, Khan opened up about a serious talk he had with Triple H about all top WWE male stars being 40 years or older and more.
The following are some of the highlights from the interview.
On who will be the biggest WWE Superstar by 2033: “I think there’s a shot for a couple people, I think. Keep in mind Rhea is in her late 20s, Rhea Ripley. She’s amazing. She has a chance. She’s already up there. I’m high on Logan Paul. He’s good, dude. And by the way, he puts in the work. I’m high on Bron. We cannot rush it, though. Gotta sort of let him develop at his own pace. And he’s an excellent athlete who obviously grew up in the wrestling business, but let it develop at its own pace, which we’re all on the same page about. I think all three of those. Oba is an obvious one. I’m high on Trick. I like the fact that he’s an SEC athlete. I like the fact that he sort of inherently understands media. I like the fact — I always look for people whose inner voice matches their outer voice. I look for that in wrestlers. I look for it in political people. You know, if your inner voice matches your outer voice, you have a shot. Trick Williams is Trick Williams. So I like that.”
On why wrestlers aren’t on the road as much as they used to be: “Think about every wrestling documentary you’ve ever seen. Usually about wrestlers in the 80s started off with, ‘I was on the road 300 days a year.’ It’s no way — and then you saw the results of that. Forget family life, but you saw what people would do to make sure that their bodies could perform at that level.”
On preparing for the future: “So here’s the good thing — a year ago, so right after WrestleMania last year, Triple H and I got together and we said, ‘Okay, let’s take a look at the future.’ Let’s look at our top male superstars. [John] Cena was obviously his retirement year. We have, and you tell me if you categorize these as our top men in some order, Roman [Reigns], Cody [Rhodes], [CM] Punk, Seth [Rollins], Brock [Lesnar]. Put Drew [McIntyre] in there, yeah. And he adds to the narrative. They’re all 40 years or older. So we said, ‘All right, we got to make sure we’re preparing for the future here.’ We went down to our Performance Center to see Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom who run that on a day-to-day basis and run NXT with us. And we said, ‘Okay, let’s take a look at the talent here.’ How come D-X, for example, when it was first starting to pop, Triple H I think was like 26. Why is it taking longer?”
