As noted, Paul “Triple H” Levesque took part in a media conference call following this past Saturday night’s NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV live WWE Network special from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Featured below are some additional highlights.
On watching Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano grow from newcomers to men headlining WWE Network specials: “Watching them grow as performers because of this and take it to another level than the ones that you’ve done before — that’s difficult when there’s an art form to that. I’ve watched them grow and that is the thing that’s, I don’t want to say it’s surprising. It’s just really cool watching them go through that.”
On Shawn Michaels working with young talents at the WWE Performance Center: “I think when, Shawns [Michaels] works with them a lot and as you watch them grow as performers it’s the part that Shawn and I talk about the most is that the nuance of storytelling that they do. Some of it is even missed when you watch it, but knowing where they were going and how they get there, it’s just that little nuance to me that is the magic of what we do and watching them do that and grow is impressive.”
On improvising during the finish due to Gargano suffering an injury during the match: “Clearly I wasn’t planning on Gargano injuring himself in the last sequence of that match. Did it play into it? Yeah. Technically it was supposed to go slightly differently than it all did. We kinda had to make a call on the fly and change a few things in the actual moment. So it ends up being different because only the people putting it together know what they were doing and that’s the beauty of what we do and they get there.”
On some of the locker room leaders in NXT and what it’s like working with them: “They’ve been a pleasure to work with. Seeing that level of guys walking in the door sheepishly trying to find a place for themselves to guys who are probably leaders of a locker room of 100 talent or so that are of all different levels of skill. Even to the point where we were just at the Mae Young Classic and Tegan Nox has a tragic accident and blows her knee out and they take her through the back door and the doctors are there with her and by the time I come around to the back a lot of the other women are around her, and as I walk into the back the person holding the icepack on her knee is Tommaso Ciampa. He’s a leader. Gargano is a leader. Aleister Black is a leader in the locker room to those people. That will resonate here. I look for those things in talent.”
(H/T to WrestlingInc.com for transcribing the above Triple H interview quotes.)
