Triple H appeared on Busted Open, which airs every Monday and Wednesday on Sirius 92 and XM 207 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Highlights from the interview are as follows:
CM Punk’s controversial promo on June 27: “Punk said something about doofus, but he called John Laurinitis douchebag, which is way worse, right? The joke in the back was “at least I’m just a doofus, you’re a douchebag.” If you look at it from that standpoint, he called me a doofus, Stephanie an idiot and Johnny a douchebag, and everyone said “Oh my God!” He tore the roof off the place! He ripped the veil off! And it was like the most crazy promo of all time!” 5 years ago, no one would have blinked. That would have been a tame segment. Everyone would have looked at that promo and said “So what?” he didn’t say anything. In order for that to get the reaction that it did, we had to go where it had to go.
“I think sometimes, people think we bumble through this. Especially, and I don’t mean this disparagingly, the internet fan I think sometimes thinks that we throw darts at the wall and fumble around to see what we can come up with next. I mean there is actually a plan to a lot of this stuff, but things change. It’s live television, and people react certain ways and things don’t happen the way you expect them too, and you have to make changes. But there is a plan to a lot of this.”
Midcard talent possibly being affected by WWE’s rebranding: “Well I don’t think the end of the brands is here at all. I think it’s for a period of time, it’s trying to give the best shows that we can. If I was a mid-card guy or lower end, certainly I would look at that and go “Oh man, the spot that could have been mine is now Randy Orton’s”. To me, I’m a big believer, You know everyone thinks we make the stars. The guys make themselves. We follow what the fans want. Make yourself relevant. Go out and make yourself relevant. If you have been doing the same thing for years, and you have been getting the same reaction, and you’re in the same spot, change. We tell the guys that all the time and yet they don’t do it. We try to help them.
“There is just a different mentality, guys have to be willing and I think a lot of them think that they do, but they have to be willing to go out there and take it. They got to be willing to step on toes. They got to be willing to jump ahead. It’s a business. Be willing to step up and not take no for an answer. I have been a big believer that if you’re good enough, the cream rises to the top and you will get the spot.”
The PG product: “We had pushed the envelope so far and you get to a point that after a while, its like, Vince will always use this expression, even though it was completely irrelevant from a timeframe standpoint, but we had “Chainsaw Charlie”. Where do you go after a guy with a chainsaw? But there is a certain point and time where you heard all this stuff on TV you have to pull it back to a point where it almost becomes sterile to get back to a point where you can begin to touch the envelope again where people go “OOH! Like we made it so sterile, like when CM Punk said Ass for the first time, people were like “Oh My God, he said ass!” Where ass was said every 4 seconds for a while. We have to pull it back. Will we ever get where we were before? No, because the world has changed.
“I just don’t think you can kind of do that programming now, with the way that the world is. We will never get back all the way there. But I think there is definitely a huge gap between where we were and where we went to. But I think for the right reasons. You have to get to a point where you almost sterilize it to make it seem edgy again. If you just back it off a little bit, it kind of seems a little watered down. So we just took it to where it needed to go to get it back to where it needed to be.”
CM Punk’s controversial promo on June 27: “Punk said something about doofus, but he called John Laurinitis douchebag, which is way worse, right? The joke in the back was “at least I’m just a doofus, you’re a douchebag.” If you look at it from that standpoint, he called me a doofus, Stephanie an idiot and Johnny a douchebag, and everyone said “Oh my God!” He tore the roof off the place! He ripped the veil off! And it was like the most crazy promo of all time!” 5 years ago, no one would have blinked. That would have been a tame segment. Everyone would have looked at that promo and said “So what?” he didn’t say anything. In order for that to get the reaction that it did, we had to go where it had to go.
“I think sometimes, people think we bumble through this. Especially, and I don’t mean this disparagingly, the internet fan I think sometimes thinks that we throw darts at the wall and fumble around to see what we can come up with next. I mean there is actually a plan to a lot of this stuff, but things change. It’s live television, and people react certain ways and things don’t happen the way you expect them too, and you have to make changes. But there is a plan to a lot of this.”
Midcard talent possibly being affected by WWE’s rebranding: “Well I don’t think the end of the brands is here at all. I think it’s for a period of time, it’s trying to give the best shows that we can. If I was a mid-card guy or lower end, certainly I would look at that and go “Oh man, the spot that could have been mine is now Randy Orton’s”. To me, I’m a big believer, You know everyone thinks we make the stars. The guys make themselves. We follow what the fans want. Make yourself relevant. Go out and make yourself relevant. If you have been doing the same thing for years, and you have been getting the same reaction, and you’re in the same spot, change. We tell the guys that all the time and yet they don’t do it. We try to help them.
“There is just a different mentality, guys have to be willing and I think a lot of them think that they do, but they have to be willing to go out there and take it. They got to be willing to step on toes. They got to be willing to jump ahead. It’s a business. Be willing to step up and not take no for an answer. I have been a big believer that if you’re good enough, the cream rises to the top and you will get the spot.”
The PG product: “We had pushed the envelope so far and you get to a point that after a while, its like, Vince will always use this expression, even though it was completely irrelevant from a timeframe standpoint, but we had “Chainsaw Charlie”. Where do you go after a guy with a chainsaw? But there is a certain point and time where you heard all this stuff on TV you have to pull it back to a point where it almost becomes sterile to get back to a point where you can begin to touch the envelope again where people go “OOH! Like we made it so sterile, like when CM Punk said Ass for the first time, people were like “Oh My God, he said ass!” Where ass was said every 4 seconds for a while. We have to pull it back. Will we ever get where we were before? No, because the world has changed.
“I just don’t think you can kind of do that programming now, with the way that the world is. We will never get back all the way there. But I think there is definitely a huge gap between where we were and where we went to. But I think for the right reasons. You have to get to a point where you almost sterilize it to make it seem edgy again. If you just back it off a little bit, it kind of seems a little watered down. So we just took it to where it needed to go to get it back to where it needed to be.”