Triple H Explains WWE’s New Creative Direction
The man behind WWE’s creative vision is Triple H, who has opened up about the company’s creative process during a recent conference call.
When Vince McMahon retired as WWE’s Chairman & CEO on July 22nd following a scandal involving several hush money payments, that left a big void in the company that was filled partly by WWE Hall of Famer, Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
While Triple H’s wife Stephanie took over as Chairwoman and Co-CEO with Nick Khan, Hunter became WWE’s Chief Content Officer, which meant he was in charge of the creative team on Raw & Smackdown while also helping to run talent relations. It’s a role that Triple H has been ready for because he worked closely under Vince McMahon from a creative standpoint while also running the NXT brand for most of the 2010s.
Since Triple H took over, there have been multiple reports about backstage morale being better in the company.
During WWE’s 2022 third-quarter financials call, Triple H spoke about the long-term version he has while running the creative team in WWE while also mentioning some big-name stars that will hopefully “move the needle” when they return to television as well.
“It’s looking at a year-long cycle of content creation over that year and trying to pick places that you want to go to and put them into your creative GPS system and figure out how you want to get to those things. It’s looking further ahead than we’ve ever done before.”
“As we’re rounding the bend to come into the new year and looking at WrestleMania, I’m already beginning in my mind, with the team, collaborate on what we want next year’s WrestleMania to look like and how we want the spring coming out of WrestleMania to transfer into the summer and into the fall.”
“It’s a large cycle and the further we can get ahead of it, to know where we want to go, obviously, our business being different than making movies or anything else with the human beings involved, injury rates, everything else that come along with it.”
“When I look at the creative we’re doing now and the success of that, understand we’re still doing that without Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton. Those are significant stars that, when they return, will move the needle as well.”
Triple H also spoke about the importance of character development.
“The other big thing for us is focusing on character development and as you see a lot of stars returning, you will see stars coming up through our developmental system that have never been seen on a Raw or SmackDown before, developing those characters so that you’re invested in them, each individually so that they mean more within the programming itself.”
“For us, it’s keeping things fresh, trying outside the box things. Some are going to work, some are not, but the White Rabbit stuff was outside of the box thinking that came out of this creative team and that leads you to be able to try new things that you’ve never tried, keep the success, lose the losses. I’m not afraid of the losses, that’s where I learn.”
“The successes don’t teach me nearly as much as the losses do. When things don’t work, that’s phenomenal, we’ll figure out why they didn’t, and the next one will. I’m not afraid of any of that. It’s really moving forward, but having a plan of where you want to go.”
This coming Saturday, November 5th, Triple H will be at the helm again as WWE presents Crown Jewel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It will be WWE”s first major Saudi Arabia show since Vince McMahon retired.