WWE COO Triple H recently spoke with ESPN to promote next Sunday’s SummerSlam PPV. Topics discussed include the return of “enhancement” matches on RAW and SmackDown, a concerted effort to ‘reboot’ Braun Strowman and perception that 50/50 booking is negatively affecting WWE talent. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
WWE Utilizing Enhancement Matches:
“Anytime you do a match, you’re trying to get personalities over, because for the most part, people appreciate great wrestling, but if they don’t care about the performers and they don’t care about the story between the two performers, they don’t care about the match. They just don’t. They’ll get to the end of it and they’ll go, ‘Wow, that was really exciting and they did some crazy stuff when the one guy did the thing, you know, like I don’t remember his name, but he did the crazy move.’
“The moves and the matches only are great when they’re with great stories; when those stories are rich, and the characters are rich and you can get involved in them. And when the matches deliver that and you’re invested in those characters — that’s when it’s magic.”
“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.”
50/50 Booking & The Perception That Wins & Losses Are Meaning Less:
“It’s just a term somebody came up with. It’s just terms that people throw out there. When somebody goes, ‘Well, you just can’t get people over with 50/50 booking,’ [I’ll always say] ‘Oh, I’m sorry, how’s your territory coming? Because this one seems to be doing pretty good over here.’ We just had the largest WrestleMania in history. People talk a lot of smack about ratings and things, but they don’t understand all of the dynamics of everything we do. They don’t. They sit on the internet and they read one thing and they give their point of view.”
Overall it’s a really good interview that you can check out at ESPN.com.
