Triple H on Logan Paul's podcast

[Chris]

Paul Levesque appeared on an episode of Impaulsive with Logan Paul released on Tuesday.

During the conversation, Levesque commented on filling Vince McMahon's "massive shoes" and also credited his father-in-law for taking "this tiny, little thing happening in bars" and turning it into a "big global sensation."

"I'll say this about Vince, massive shoes that I couldn't even dream of beginning to think I could fill. The gap there in this moment is massive but the opportunity to take it in a direction that it's never gone before is massive. I'm thrilled for that opportunity. We have an unbelievable team. It's never going to be one person, one person can't even begin to fill his shoes, it's going to take an entire team of people to jump in those shoes because without him, there's none of this."

"The vision to take this tiny, little thing happening in bars to this big global sensation like nothing else," Levesque continued to say of McMahon. "WrestleMania is one of the most valuable sports franchises on the planet."

The interview was filmed on Friday, the day before Paul would wrestle The Miz at SummerSlam. With the event taking place in Nissan Stadium, Levesque spoke to him about the difference between boxing in front of a live crowd and performing in front of fans in WWE.

"You box a dude like Floyd [Mayweather] you have one focus," Levesque said.

"You have one focus, an athletic event is different, one focus, it's the person in front of you. You're not so worried about fans, you're not so worried about the reactions."

Whereas in WWE, Levesque continued, the focus is on the live crowd.

"Our job is to make them go crazy. Your focus is on their reaction."

Levesque praised how quickly Paul has taken to WWE but spent part of the interview encouraging him to think about creating drama rather than just focussing on moves.

"It's not the moves. It's like watching a movie, how many movies have you seen with crazy budgets and special effects and CGI that visually you go like, 'holy s**t, that's amazing' and no one cares? The movie bombs, there's no story, no one really fully cares because it's not about the moves in what we do, it's about what you do in between, it's the characters and the story."

"I can make a way longer list of terrible athletes that were incredibly over in this business than I can crazy athletes who were the be-all end-all. People that are fanatics about what we do go like 'oh my god, that match was so good, those guys are so good,' everybody else is like 'meh'."

Later in the show, Levesque would also speak about the benefits of highlight-worth wrestling moments, however.

"The story has to be there but yeah the special effects got to be good when you get them and you've got to have the commercial moment to sell the movie because there are a million great movies out there that nobody gave a s**t about and/or watched because there was nothing that hooked them to go see it. You have to have that hook and you have to have those things."

He also spoke about his rivalry with The Rock and how they never had a one-on-one match at WrestleMania.

"Unfortunately, I always feel like it's the one thing, we got to this unbelievably heated, long-term rivalry, and then never got to pay it off on the biggest platform possible and I think the Rock feels the same way too which is why a couple of years ago we did a backstage little thing."

"That was literally him coming to me and saying like 'dude, I want to do a match next year, I'd like to do it with you, let us have that WrestleMania match we never got to have and I was like, 'yeah, I'm in.'"

Levesque then noted The Rock's schedule prevented the match from taking place, however.

He was also asked what his first impression was when he heard that "Jake Paul's older brother" was going to join WWE.

"You want me to be completely honest? I said 'who the f**k is that?'" Levesque responded.

"He's not the demo," Paul commented. "You're not the demo."

Levesque continued to speak about working with celebrities such as Paul in WWE.

"I can tell you, over the years a million celebrities have come up to us and said, 'I want to be a WWE Superstar, I want to do it so bad.' That all sounds great on paper. First time they hit the mat, they're like 'yeah, so I was thinking maybe I could help with commentary or I could do something else because that s**t hurts.'"

He would continue to say that when a celebrity does get it, it's something special.

"Then there are certain folks that come into it that are just invested in it and then that's when I light up. If somebody comes in and they just want to hook their wagon to it for a minute, or they want to promote a film, that's exciting but when somebody comes in like you and goes, 'well, hey this is awesome, I'd like to be a part of this' and then when they come in and they kill it, you see that level because to do what you did... it's like Bad Bunny, same thing. I don't give this easy because I've done this for a long time, put my life on the line for it, and seen other people do the same. Respect in our business for what we do is tough to get and I don't give it easy, Taker doesn't give it easy, the people at the top are like, you got to earn it and it's a lot to earn. You earned my respect big time, Bad Bunny earned my respect big time because to do what you did you had to dedicate yourself 100%."

Triple H: Vince McMahon took wrestling from ‘little thing’ in bars to global sensation

Levesque appeared on Impaulsive with Logan Paul.

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