WWE: Triple H Talks Fans’ Frustrations, Fixing The Current Product, Calls 3-Hour Raw “Extremely Difficult”

This past Thursday, Triple H held a conference call with the media to promote next week’s WWE NXT Takeover: London event. During the call, Triple H talked about various topics including; fans frustrations with the product as of late, three hour Monday Night Raw’s being “extremely difficult,” and how to handle NXT call-ups to the main roster.

In response to a question being raised that one of Monday Night Raw’s three hours should be given to NXT, Triple H had this to say:

“If the thought would be to do it there that night, then you’re just doing a third hour. Then, it’s not NXT, then it’s not different and not a different feel and flavor. Is there a way to do that? Maybe. I think at the end of the day, three hours – no matter how you do it – is extremely difficult. I’ll be the first guy to admit that if I go to a movie and it’s longer than two hours, then I’m looking at my watch, no matter how good it is.”

Recently Mick Foley has been very vocal on social media about his frustrations with WWE’s current product. Frank Mustari (also known as “Frank the Clown”) wrote a letter to WWE in which he aired his grievances over WWE’s current product from the perspective of a dedicated, longtime fan. Foley and Mustari’s frustrations blew up the IWC with many people feeling the same way they do. Triple H had this to say about many of their fans’ frustrations:

“We just have to become more disciplined and more Creative with how we do things, and how we operate the shows. We’ve had some unfortunate situations with injuries and everything else. It’s on us to be more creative and come up with a better format; a better show. We hear people’s frustrations and in a lot of ways feel the same way. It’s fixing it. And, trying to fix it. It is what it is. How we fix it, we’re not 100 percent sure yet. But, we will get there. Trust me.”

Triple H talks about whether or not bringing up NXT talents to Raw and Smackdown would help the injury depleted main roster in the long run:

“The thing that I hate doing is, ‘Well, there’s a lot of injuries right now, so we’re going to pull this guy up,’ but then the injured guys will come back and then we’re not sure what we’ll do – now we have too many guys for the space. I hate taking a guy as talented as Finn Balor and saying, ‘You’re the band-aid to hold us over until all these other guys come back and then we’ll see from there.’ If we don’t have that gameplan for when we call these guys up, especially for a Finn Balor, then it’s not the right time. You need to have something in your mind, and hopefully a long-term plan in place that gets them to where you want them to be. At least that would be the goal for me when guys come up.”

Thanks to Rajah for the quotes.

Mark’s reaction: I thought all the quotes mentioned above were interesting; the most interesting being his comments about fans’ frustrations. It’s nice to hear Triple H take ownership for the lackluster product that’s been offered to the fans as of late (even if it’s not directly his fault). Usually you’ll never really hear anyone that high up in the executive food chain say what they’re doing is wrong. The typical response that’s usually fed to fans is how they know what they’re doing, to continue to watch, and how there will be a payoff; so it’s refreshing to hear comments like these from someone like Hunter.

Triple H’s comments sound like he’s also not feeling the storylines and direction Raw and Smackdown are currently taking at all. I get the feeling that if Triple H had more control over the main roster as he does NXT, Raw would be a much different show than it is right now. It sounds like he’s not a big fan of the three-hour broadcast as well, which I agree with. I prefer two hours. However, with the roster they have, they can really make the most out of a three hour show by giving certain storylines more time to grow and creating more interesting rivalries. The problem is, that’s not being done. Triple H said it best himself, “we just have to be more disciplined and more creative with how we do things.”

He also makes a great point about bringing wrestlers like Balor from NXT. It’s more important to have a long-term plan for these men and women rather than using them as an emergency answer to injuries. Everything Triple H said here is spot on, it’s just time to start getting more creative and making a change. I think Frank Mustari said it best in his letter to WWE when he said that the WWE should hire talented people who care about the product. The amount of writing that has to be done on a weekly basis for WWE shows is enormous. There’s never an off-season in the WWE. I’m sure exhaustion eventually sets in the creative team where they feel like they can just phone it in for a few weeks or so because it’s the end of the year or it’s football season. However, if you have people who genuinely care and love the product doing the writing, maybe they won’t feel as inclined to get lazy with the work.

There are a million different problems with the WWE but that’s just my two cents. I’d love to hear what you have to say about Triple H’s comments and some of the backlash WWE’s been receiving from fans like Frank. What are your thoughts on improving the product? Are you struggling through Monday Night Raw’s? What do you want to see more of/less of? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.