As noted, ESPN.com officially launched a WWE section on their website this morning, featuring news and editorials, title histories, and much more.
The WWE section of the site will also feature the Cheap Heat wrestling podcast, rankings and much more. The subsection of the site launched with a new interview with Triple H conducted by KC Joyner, and Shane McMahon appearing on the Cheap Heat podcast.
Triple H talks about character development, booking decisions including bringing back enhancement matches and more. You can read a few excerpts below:
Triple H talks about character development:
“Everybody is different, every single person. There are a lot of talents that, over the years, you take them and you turn their personality way up and that’s them. That’s their character. And that works for a lot of guys. A lot of them, as they become good, they start to morph themselves in a bigger, better way. And those are the ones that you just try to help cultivate to become big stars by turning up the volume.
There are a lot of other guys [who] need to transform into something else. In their personal lives they’re quiet, or they’re reserved or whatever, and when the red light goes on and you give them a character that they can sink their teeth into, they become something great. If you knew Glenn Jacobs and you knew Kane, they’re two totally different things. That’s kind of the arc of what we do.”
Triple H comments on enhancement matches returning to RAW and Smackdown:
“Enhancement matches on the shows, to me, are designed to get personalities over. It’s designed for one guy to go out there — yeah, he beats up another guy, but what was he doing while he was doing that? He was establishing his moves, so I see what this guy does and see the kind of a style in which he wrestles? But if he just goes out there and just does a few moves with no personality and no charisma, I still don’t care about him. I just know he’s better than the other guy, who didn’t look like he was very good in the first place.”
“We’re resetting Braun Strowman. We’re resetting who he is, and resetting his character and his personality so that you can learn more about him and feel for him. It’s the same thing with Nia Jax and any of these characters that we do those things with.”
“When I write NXT, I never go, ‘I just need to get so and so a match,’ and give them an enhancement match. It’s not what I want to do. I give it to them so I can see a different part of his personality. If I give [Shinsuke] Nakamura an enhancement match in NXT at this point, it’s so I can get the entertainment side of him out that I can’t get if he’s out there and he’s going to wrestle Samoa Joe. I want to see a different side of him, so I give him something that he can do that different side in and show me that personality.”
Triple H talks about why the tag division seemed like it was on a decline in recent years:
“I think you go back five or six years ago when the tag teams were on the decline. Part of that was a thinner talent roster. NXT has been able to beef up the ranks enough for us to split rosters, and you see this resurgence. … I’m really proud of them — of the entire developmental system. It has allowed for the resurgence of tag-team wrestling and resurgence of women’s wrestling by giving them the platform to be able to do what they do.
Sometimes when you’re a talent, there’s safety in numbers. You gotta go out on a limb when you’re a performer. And it’s uncomfortable. And people that don’t do it for a living don’t understand it, but being a performer and going out there and just letting it all hang out there, when it’s just on you, and you’re the only one — man, it’s hard to do that.
“When you’ve got somebody else to blame, somebody else sharing in the success and somebody standing next to you, supporting you on the team, it’s liberating. The challenge is then getting past the liberation when it’s time to move out on your own. Can you then make that transition? Does that lead to them being singles wrestlers? Who knows.”
