Paul “Triple H” Levesque sat down with Peter Rosenberg for a special hour-plus interview ahead of WrestleMania 41 this weekend.
On Wednesday evening, WWE released the complete 67-minute one-on-one sit-down discussion between the WWE Chief Content Officer and member of the WWE broadcast team.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview, as well as the complete video archive of the discussion.
On the thing about good workers: “Make me a list of the greatest performers in this business and that list will be 2 thirds people that were worse than majority of the list of great workers that didn’t get to the top.”
On “Main Event” Jey Uso organically earning his moment at WrestleMania 41: “Because people made it happen, sometimes things happen organically along the way that get you to where you wanna be. And Jey through The Bloodline saga was sort of a linch-pin in that story, then goes off on his own — Jey when he had the opportunities (post-Bloodline), would click on the moments and at the end of the day our business is about moments — Jey has great athletic ability and the things he does in the ring, he does well. Is he the most technical guy? No. Is he the greatest performer in-ring? No. But he has a charisma and likability that he lets people in and they wanna see him succeed. When you walk into a building with 10-30-60,000 and he walks out and that whole place is doing his entrance, hanging on everything he does — That’s what it takes to be a top guy, it’s about box office, and Jey is proving he’s Main Event Jey Uso — Win lose or draw at WrestleMania, that connection with the crowd will be his moment.”
On how only three people in WWE knew ahead of time about John Cena’s heel turn: “We kept that so quiet that on our side, three people on the exec team knew. That’s it. Me and two others. Nobody else knew. Cena knew. Cena didn’t even tell his wife. Cena didn’t even tell his manager. Cody knew, Cody told no one, right. Obviously Rock knew. Travis sort of knew but he was just fucking going along, just being along for the ride. Doing exactly what they told him to do which is at some point slap Cody and he was slapping him whether Cena wanted it or not, cause Cena didn’t know about that part
On how he directed traffic at the end of the show: “When we get to the end of the show, I have to tell everyone as we’re coming in to that last minute of Elimination Chamber, ‘Okay, there’s aftermath on this show. Everybody lay out, I’m directing traffic, I will call all of this. Marty, here’s how all of this is going to go.’ I rattle off all this shit to Marty, kind like shot for shot. It’s fast because we’re getting to the end of this match. Marty is like, ‘Holy shit.’ I’m like, ‘I will walk you through it’ because I’m still not saying on headset, and then John is going to turn on Cody. I’m leaving out details. So when we get there, I’m trying to be a fan and feel it and as it comes in, then technically put it out to the truck of where we need to go and hopefully be just ahead of it to where we can get it down.”
(H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.)
