Steve Carrier on March 30, 2018
It’s become accustomed that the week before a Big Four PPV, the WWE’s COO and former 14 time heavyweight champion Triple-H holds a media conference call where he fields questions from journalists and reporters regarding a variety of topics. Usually during these calls Trips gets to talk about his passion projects with NXT, and, without revealing any spoilers, explains his decision making for the future of the brand. His most recent conference just happened. Here are the highlights, including a link to the full audio if you feel like listening.
-Trips thanks everyone for listening in, says it was a busy week with the HBO Andre documentary premiering and the preparation for Mania and Takeover.
-An explanation of the newly created NXT North American Championship belt, and how he hopes to promote it the same way he does with the United Kingdom title, internationally. When asked if the women would also be getting a secondary title, Trips responded by saying not at this time, but if an opportunity opens up to help the brand, it could happen.
-The process of NXT talents getting called up. He compared it to when college athletes get drafted to the pros. It’s all about timing, circumstance, and how that talent could benefit either brand. He says that Vince isn’t always as tuned in with everyone so he has an important say as well.
-Someone asked about other promotions running events in the area of WrestleMania. Trips personally doesn’t mind it, but it bothers him if the fans decide to not attend a WWE event, and have a poor experience somewhere else. He hopes in the future that he could work with these other promotions to ensure that the wrestling universe is getting the best possible wrestling experience. He mentions Progress and EVOLVE by name.
-Dave Meltzer asks how NXT manages to keep their Takeover events at the perfect amount of time, and if the roster was ever deep enough, would they consider extending shows. Hunter explains that is one of the benefits of NXT, is that they continue to have a revolving roster. However, if the situation ever did occur where he felt like he had enough storylines to tell extend past the normal 2.5-3 hour mark, he would consider just running multiple events so fans wouldn’t become exhausted.
-Another question regarding how Hunter balances 205 Live into his most recent work load. He reiterates what we’ve already reported on a couple days ago about how the division is going back to basics. He concludes by saying he hopes the cruiserweights show will gain the same type of following as NXT, which currently has interest and viewership up.
-Hunter comments on the difference between being on NXT and coming through the Performance Center. It’s a marathon to find out where the proper place is for a certain talent, not a sprint. There is no need to rush something and possibly have it fail. He uses Elias as a prime example. He says Elias’s gimmick was always more suited for the main roster, but they had him in NXT to polish some of his weaker elements. (Can’t argue with him there.)
-On a question about the influx of MMA talent Hunter says a lot of doors open up when these crossover athletes come through. When they signed an NFL guy they were receiving a lot of calls from people in that circle, and the same thing is happening with mixed martial arts fighters. He mentions that the perk of MMA fighters is that it has similar traits to being a WWE wrestler, and they can use that to help develop the talent to the best of their abilities.
-Final caller asked who Triple H has been the most impressed with, or seen the most improvement in. Hunter says that there are a lot of improvements made not just in the ring, but with confidence and mentality of the business. He praises Adam Cole, Lars Sullivan, and Velveteen Dream. He speaks highly of Ember Moon and Shayna Baszler.
If you want to hear the full interview in detail embedded below:
March 30, 2018 4:03 pm
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