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Wrestling fans like to speculate about when Vince McMahon might step down from his role atop the writing and booking team for WWE’s main roster programming. Some openly fantasize about the day when Paul “Triple H” Levesque will take the reins and run Raw & SmackDown like their beloved NXT.
Well, according to Haitch himself, sounds like there’s pretty much only one thing that will ever allow that to happen. And it’s something nobody should wish for. As Levesque told Sports Business Journal recently while being interviewed with his wife, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, his father-in-law will always want to have his hands in the creative process:
“He has the most incredible work ethic of any person I have ever seen. It’s impossible to hang with him on a long-term basis even at 73. It’s crazy. Still trains every day, still does everything. But he’s hands on on so many things, not because he micromanages or not because he can’t let people succeed or do things, but when it comes to the creative and shows, he’s still at RAW and SmackDown every week because that’s the part that he loves. He found himself later as a businessman but that’s what he loves to do. He’s awesome at it and that’s his…it’s his passion. He won’t give that up. Not because he should. It’s his passion. It’s being a songwriter. He’s always going to want to collaborate and work on a song. Always.”
In another clip from their talk with SBJ, the pair described the creative process - namely how far in advance they plan and what leads to deviations from those plans:
McMahon: We try to have a basic plan with their script a year out, you know. But inevitably, things happen and storylines change. Another beautiful thing about WWE is because we are live 52 weeks a year, we have no off season, we have no reruns, and we essentially have a live focus group every single night at these live events telling us what’s working, what’s not working, and what they don’t care about so we can shift and adjust our plans as needed.
Levesque: And you’re dealing with athletes and you’re dealing with injuries and the ability to shift and pivot at a moment’s notice to where you want to go. The beautiful thing for us is – I was told this early in my career – beauty comes out of chaos a lot, and sometimes when you get into a situation where the worst possible thing happens, leading into a big event somebody gets injured and you think ‘oh this is the worst thing that could happen’, it leads you to come up with something better.
The booking of WrestleMania 35 does make seem like Vince is listening to his “live focus group” this year, so maybe his steering the ship for the next however many years isn’t a bad thing?
Let us know what you think, Cagesiders.