Top WWE executive and former 14-time world champion Triple H recently appeared on ESPN’s Cheap Heat podcast with hosts Peter Rosenberg and Stat Guy Greg to discuss a number of different topics, including The Game’s thoughts on a retirement tour and WWE building a physical Hall of Fame. Highlights are below.
On WWE creating a physical hall of fame:
For me to say, ‘It’s on the way’ makes it sound like we’re already building it. It is definitely something that we contemplated in our mind. It has to be done right. In the world today, it’s a funny thing, people go like, ‘Oh my God, that would be fascinating to go to see somebody’s old trunks’ or… Hall Of Fames like that, physical Hall Of Fames, museums like that tend to be money pits and not do well because over time, people will [see] them and just think, ‘Well you need to make it something more’ and I think if it was interactive with technology the way that it is now, those objects were there, things that people can see and be wowed by, but also there’s reasons to keep going back. I’m of the opinion that-that means to be more than a thing you go to one time and go like, ‘Oh that was neat. I saw some boots.’ But more of a, ‘You gotta go see this. I was there. There’s a virtual this, there’s a 3D that, there’s a –’ technology takes you to another level. Like Disney, you go see these incredible things but also have these mind-blowing experiences around WWE and you can also spend the day there. You can go there and meet some legends and see people doing Q&A’s and maybe it’s a part of our developmental where there’s matches happening and there’s a lot of stuff to see, along with, so if done right. So there’s a lot of thought being put into it and a lot of thought being put around it. If you were to say and it’s clearly not my final decision always but if you were to say that’s something I’m bullish about doing in the future, absolutely.
Talks potentially doing a retirement tour against a slew of opponents he’s never faced:
I would like it to be somebody that I don’t have a — if I was to go and do one big — and I said this in the interview. For me, I would like to do, if I was able to do it and this would be a big ‘if’ because of the time challenge of it but to be able to go to different markets and be able to wrestle there and do like a ‘One World Tour’ where you go to the big venues and try not to get injured. But one big tour and go to Japan and go to The O2 in London and just all these different arenas. Go to the Garden one more time, go to Chicago one more time, go to L.A. one more time. Do these big things, Mexico City. To have those big moments in these big arenas because to me, it is about the different fans. It’s not just about that big WrestleMania moment and the different market and the feel there and the people there. But, yeah, if I was to do it in that manner and to me, the people that I’d want to do it with wouldn’t necessarily be — I wouldn’t be looking to do it with somebody that I had a long-term history with. I’d be looking to do it probably with somebody that was younger and getting rolling and I thought — doesn’t have to be younger and getting rolling but that just would be different and a different challenge and a different thought. Again, it’s not in the front of my head. It seems to bother everybody else more than it does me.
On Bad Bunny and the work he put in at the Performance Center
It was intense, his reaction. You know, he [Bad Bunny] is such — it’s hard for people that don’t follow it or understand it because people live, especially — I don’t know. I think in today’s world, people live in their own little bucket of what’s around them and they think that’s the world. They’re closed off to everything else and people that are like, ‘Bad Bunny? Who’s this guy? I’ve never heard of him’ and then he plays music, ‘Not my kind of music. This guy’s a joke.’ He’s one of the biggest stars in the world. Like a God in [the] Latin community, and so you know, as this deal started to come about, it was a huge opportunity for everybody but the cool thing is he is such a fan and I think he was more concerned with not insulting the fanbase. Being loyal to his fans and his people but not insulting WWE and what he loved his whole life. He wanted to sort of go out there and really deliver at a level that fans would appreciate and that he would be proud of and man, I’ll tell ya, once we made the deal for him to work with us, he came down there, he got a house in Orlando. I’m at the Performance Center all the time, he was here all the time training. Beat up, in the trainer’s room, getting rehab, trying not to be so sore. I mean just [getting] his ass kicked and going through it everyday and grinding and that is why he was so good.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)