Triple H has spoken for years now about global localisation in WWE and launching WWE brands in international markets for years now – but he wasn’t the boss when he started saying it.
Granted, he’s still not technically the boss now. TKO preside over WWE and on their board sits a certain former rival of The Game’s in The Rock.
However, in WWE itself, Triple H and Nick Khan are the biggest decision makers. Even under the Vince McMahon regime, Triple H was able to launch NXT as a concept; a training facility for developing WWE superstars and prospects alike.
Prior to NXT, WWE more often than not signed stars who were ether exceptional in other disciplines (see Kurt Angle), athletes with family ties in the business (see The Rock, Randy Orton and many many more) or signed the best performers from the territories and then independents.
Triple H changed that with the Performance Center in Orlando and then launching NXT the show on TV. He replicated that formula in the UK with another Performance Center and a second NXT brand, NXT UK.
Triple H has led WWE for just over two years following Vince McMahon’s departure
The former 14-time world champion has long believed he could use that blueprint in all major markets across the globe. Unfortunately, COVID put the brakes on NXT UK and that brand whilst indefinitely postponing the purported NXT Europe, too.
However, with recent European tryouts at the UK performance center on the Road to WrestleMania, Triple H’s dream appears to live once more.
‘For me, it’s all exciting,’ Triple H told Mail Sport from the tryouts. ‘When I walk in a place like this it’s like the fountain of youth.
When I walk into a place like this, it’s not about money or positions or anything else yet. It’s pure. It’s kids in this room – and I’m old enough to call them kids – that saw this product, thought that’s the coolest thing ever and had a dream.
‘Whether it was their original dream, they tried to do something else; now they’re at a place in their lives where they’re like ‘yeah, I wanna do this and I wanna give this a shot.’
Triple H spoke to Mail Sport during the UK tryouts with the hopefuls in the background
‘Because WWE, there’s pathways to doing other sports. WWE has only had a pathway like this for a few years. Saying I want to be a WWE superstar was just this crazy thing like I want to live on the moon. Now it’s becoming a reality.
‘To see these kids in here just pure, the dream, the glimmer in their eye of wanting to go and fulfil this dream and bust their ass, go through this; it’s impressive to see.’
Triple H will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame later today. That is a man that has seen and done it all in this industry, so what does he look for when he’s going to sign talent to carry the company forward?
‘Charisma and emergent leaders,’ he states without hesitation. ‘I want someone who is going to help others. When they get exhausted in this process, who picks others up and helps them?
‘Over the course of these days, the athleticism gets less… it’s important, but once you get through that, it’s less important. It starts to become about, who can’t you take your eye off. Who has that X-factor? Who has that charisma?
The European hopefuls put through their paces in two WWE rings
‘And then in that person’s charisma, are they charismatic and standout because they’re stand-offish to everyone else, or are they a standout because they’re a leader? I want the leaders.’
So do you need to hone your craft wrestling small venues and independent shows for years before WWE will take a look at you or you become good enough? Not necessarily, no.
Many of the athletes invited to WWE’s tryouts have no previous wrestling experience and in some cases, no knowledge of wrestling at all.
Bianca Belair is perhaps the greatest current example of a blank canvas turned into future WWE Hall of Fame and Triple H explained why experience isn’t a must.
‘It’s a blank canvas [that’s exciting], but you’re looking for the foundation. It’s tough to take someone with no charisma. If you’re an introvert or you’re shy speaking on front of groups, you’re just quiet and stay to yourself, that’s not going to make a great WWE superstar, right? You need to be larger than life.
Triple H took in the action and offered advice to a few hopeful talents
Joe and Mark Coffey, two NXT UK alumni, were among the trainers on the day
‘Those are hard things to teach. I can teach you how to do those moves. I can teach you how to hit the ropes. You have to be willing to take the pain and all the other stuff – those things we can teach. Charisma and leadership? A lot harder to teach.
‘If it’s not your instinct to want to help others, you can’t teach that because even if you do teach it, now you’re just going through the motions.
‘People know we’re looking for leadership here, it’s why we exhaust them. When you’re exhausted and you can’t breath and you think ‘man, if they make me hit these ropes again I’m gonna pass out’. That’s when your real, true personality comes out. You can’t hide it anymore. That’s when we see real leadership,’ he said.
Given all of this excitement and effort to recruit over in the UK, is NXT Europe still a thing then?
‘It is,’ he asserts. ‘I’m still a big believe that the UK was going to work. The product was there, the interest level as there – the pandemic squashed it. For years we couldn’t move people, we couldn’t bring people in and it just shut it down. I still believe it’s there.
‘I still believe in the expansion of what we’re doing. It’s about the opportunity for people. The opportunity in this industry, what we do, is few and far between outside of WWE where you’re kind of just trying to do it on your own.
Nick Khan and Triple H are the two key decision makers in WWE today
‘It’s as if you have an instrument but no one is teaching you how to play it and you’re just trying to start a band. You’re just kinda winging it and there’s no other stuff so people will come and pay to see it. But if you have somebody teaching you, showing you the ropes, showing you how to play, mentoring you, it makes it so much easier. That’s what this is about.
‘The future of the business for us is going to Japan, the Middle East, Australia and all of these places where we can help support and grow a thriving industry. The people who don’t see that don’t see what we do.’
WWE’s chief operating officer is asked incessantly about bringing WrestleMania to the UK, especially after holding a meeting with London Mayor Sadiq Khan last year.
But in lieu of having WrestleMania in the next couple of years, will the UK get another premium live event in the next year or so?
‘Oh yeah, for sure,’ Triple H assures. ‘The process now for these events, it’s like a bidding process like the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the World Cup, right? Places are bidding on stuff to come in, it’s part of what we do.
‘My goal? I want to go where the fans are the best and where we can do the biggest business we can, but in the most exciting way possible. If that means going to Australia, if it means France, England, Mexico, South America – we’re a global product.
‘Netflix gets us live to the world, 80 per cent of the world sees us now as it happens. That to me is the excitement level of it for me. We’re launching over in India; transitioning our programming from other places to Netflix, so we’ll be live in India on Netflix. That’s a huge thing for them.
‘So the opportunity for us to go to India in the next couple of years, that becomes even bigger. As that infrastructure becomes more real in India, all those places – I can’t wait to go to all of them.
Alex McCarthy grabbed time with Triple H before the hopefuls’ promo class
‘And again, this model that’s here [the UK], obviously a very mature market that we’ve been coming to for a long time, but this process can be replicated everywhere and that’s the exciting part to me.
‘Any kid with a dream that you see come in here with an opportunity, for us to go to India and see a kid from a village somewhere get that opportunity. All over the globe, it’s massive.
‘To answer the WrestleMania question, that’s like the Super Bowl. So the process of that going other places, people don’t understand the logistics of what that takes. Just going to Las Vegas, I can’t tell you the logistical effort that takes.
‘They’ll be in the market for weeks setting up the set, people on the ground running stuff. So when that becomes international, the logistics become even harder. That’s the challenge, but we’re up for the challenge,’ Triple H concluded with a smile.
With business booming for WWE, it looks as though Triple H will realise his dream of getting a WWE foothold in every major market sooner rather than later. However, making good on a previous European promise should be his first port of call and everything the company is doing suggests he agrees.
Watch WrestleMania 41 from Las Vegas on Netflix April 19 and 20
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