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Triple H on why Roman Reigns polarises fans, facing Dean Ambrose and NXT's UK summer tour coming to Download Festival

4K views 35 replies 36 participants last post by  HereComesTrouble 
#1 ·
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What was it like performing in front of UK fans again, when you took on Dean Ambrose at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle on April 20?

It was awesome man. You know I think one of the things I probably miss most about not being a full-time performer is in some ways the European tours and coming over here. The fans in the UK are always so phenomenal, just loud and excited and thrilled for us to be here. It was really cool - last minute but really cool - to have this opportunity to come over here and be able to go back in time a little bit, work with some of the guys now and just see these fans again. It's an awesome experience for me.

Ambrose earned the win and evened the scores between the pair of you, after you previously defeated him in a cracking match at Roadblock. How do you find working with Dean?

He's awesome. He is one of those guys that just has this innate charisma about him. To me there is a relationship with guys when you are in the ring that you have and there is an unspoken sort of vibe and feel. Dean is one of those guys that when you stand in the ring with him, you can feel that back and forth vibe from the other side of the ring. You really don't have to manufacture anything, you don't have to dig deep for it, it's just there. And it's fun.

What's great about these shows for me is you don't have the pressure of pay-per-view and you don't have the pressure of television. Trust me, people forget - and I said this to people when I was in Toronto for the Roadblock special - people forget I have done this three times in the last three years! There is a lot of pressure on it right? You try to mitigate that but you put a lot of pressure on yourself. It's hard to enjoy the process sometimes. At WrestleMania there's 100,000 people in a stadium - talk about feeling that pressure! It's not that you don't feel the pressure to perform here, but you can have more fun. You can come here and get in the ring in Newcastle and just enjoy the fact that it's so loud, the place is packed and people are going crazy and just enjoy what you do.

Because you don't compete in the ring as regularly now, did you feel more pressure going into this year's main event at WrestleMania, than you did perhaps when you were still carving out your reputation and going into your first at WrestleMania 2000?

I don't know if the pressure is less, because I think that if you're anywhere near decent at what you do, then one, you put a ton of pressure on yourself to do it well, and two, if you're not nervous and you don't feel that, then you don't care. But I do think that there is - and I don't care who you are - there is a challenge of keeping your confidence. When you do this every day, and in 2000 I was doing this every day, I was stepping in the ring with [Mick] Foley, [Steve] Austin, The Rock, Undertaker on a daily basis, you know what you do, and you know where you stand and how good you are. Your confidence, it's just there. It's just easy and natural. When you haven't done it, it doesn't matter how good you were at it, that doubt can creep in. It's a constant pushing back of the tide of self-doubt and just questioning yourself. It takes you a minute to realise 'oh yeah, I do remember how to do this, I'm actually not that bad!'

What did you think of your match with Roman Reigns? Did you enjoy it?


Yeah, you know, it was a challenging situation on a lot of fronts. Roman is a unique character in the business and a polarising character, much like a John Cena or somebody like that. He's a polarising character, you are in front of 100,000 people and you're also coming up at the end of a six-and-a-half hour plus show - it was long. I was happy with it but to be honest I've not watched it back yet. I'm real funny about watching myself back at this point in time in my career, it's hard for me to see the positives sometimes. But I was there, I kind of know how it went and how it felt out there and yeah, I was happy with it, I felt we did well and we did what we needed to do. For me it's about getting to where you need to be. If you get to the end of a chapter in WWE, and the chapter delivered to get you where you needed to go to start the next chapter, then you did all right.

That's where we are now, with Roman as champion. He is becoming more of a 'tweener' and as he keeps saying, not a bad guy, not a good guy, but THE guy. It's set up an interesting dynamic leading into his feud with AJ Styles.

Yeah. I think the world is a different place now. I think you're going to find it very hard now, at the top level, to find anybody that is either a good guy or a bad guy. Someone who is universally loved or universally disliked. It's very difficult. I think part of that is the internet, in that I don't care what the topic is, whether it's politics, music, sports, anything, you can go on the internet and find somebody who loves it and somebody who hates it. You can jump on whatever conversation you want to have with people who are like-minded to what you think, or opposite-minded to what you think. And that emboldens your position right? So I think the time of 'hey, this is the guy and he's the good guy' and everybody goes 'yay he's the good guy' - I think that time has gone. And I think the time of saying 'this is the bad guy and he's the evil one and everybody is going to hate that person' is really gone too. Because there is just that level of, no matter if you're the bad guy doing the worst possible thing you can do, there is somebody that goes: 'I like that, that's cool, I like the fact he's that evil, that's cool'. There are people on the other side who want a hero saying 'hey, don't quit, never surrender and I'm the underdog...' all those things. I make that sound horrible - can you tell which way I slant? Ha ha.

I just think that either one or the other time is gone and you're going to rub against that now. I think the real position in the business, and what we do now, is about just being true. Being real, being you and whatever that is, being true to the character that you create. And if you're true to it and believe it and feel it, then people will buy it, either positively or negatively, they will get behind you one way or the other. As long as you're true to that character and who that person is. If you sway from that character and wobble and vary, then there is no buy-in, because they see it's just a front.

NXT is returning to the UK this summer, kicking off a seven-date tour in June with three shows at Download Festival. You are a big metal fan and I understand you've played a big part in making this happen. Can you tell us a bit more about how that came about and what these shows will involve?

Yeah, I think the relationship with Download is awesome. For us that vibe of that genre of music, of heavy metal, hard rock and even to some degree punk and harder thrash, is really the vibe of NXT. I think it really plays into what we do, it's the same kind of passionate, aggressive and powerful feeling, and so it's the same fanbase. It's an opportunity for us to connect with Download, to connect with the biggest music festival in the world, and to be a part of something that is connected to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Rammstein, all the top bands, whether legendary and historic from the beginning, or whether breaking new ground today, and that is kind of what NXT's vibe is. Slightly underground, a little edgier, a little more dangerous - the vibe is the same.

The opportunity is awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing it, to being a part of it. I know our NXT talent are excited about coming to perform in front of some of their heroes, some of their legends, some of the people they look up to in music. It's a great opportunity for us to get in front of a lot of current fans but also win over new fans and show them what NXT is. And make them go 'I used to watch...' or 'I've never watched WWE...' but to come and see and be a part of that, and hopefully go: 'Holy crap this is good. Man I'm going to start watching that!'
 
#3 ·
Damn his memory is short. He must have forgotten that Bryan was pretty much universally liked such a short time ago when he was on top. Typical politician like answer. Would expect nothing less.
 
#4 ·
He's a polarizing character because you make him a polarizing character based on his lacklustre gimmick which is generally out of his comfort zone.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Man, this "the world is so crazy now! there's no one you can put at the top that will be universally loved!" business is comical. He JUST got done talking about wrestling Dean Ambrose. I hate on his character but fans love that dude and he would absolutely get cheered by the vast majority.

I dig what he said about the Download festival and the association of wrestling and metal/hard rock.
 
#20 ·
I disagree. A career creative person whether they are a musician, performer, artist or whatever, can be very self critical when they look at their own work, only seeing the flaws and being annoyed/ frustrated with themselves. Especially a perfectionist. They see right through all the great things and just see the mistakes. In some ways that's what makes them so good, because they are driven to eradicate the mistakes/ errors/ sloppiness as much as possible. It doesn't apply to all creatives but I totally get what he's saying there.

Take a DJ for example, you can listen to a their live set with them and you can be saying, man that's an awesome mix or those tracks go really well together, and the DJ will be annoyed that one track's mix was a tiny fraction off at the beginning - they only hear the things that are wrong. That doesn't make them suck at all.
 
#13 ·
Are the fans polarizing or Reigns? Saying Reigns polarized. Infers he is evoking good and bad responses. That's sugar coating. They boo him. Then cheer him. They cheer him.when hes in the ring with someone more hated. But boo him when it matters. Wyatt is the only one and Ambrose. Who.seem to be organically over. Jmo.
 
#21 ·
I really liked how positive Triple H was about Dean, you can tell by the way his response was worded that he thinks extremely highly of Ambrose after working with him.

On the flipside, he said pretty vague, evasive things when asked about Reigns- talking about this polarising character and especially the whole "getting through the chapter" quote- reminds me of my mentality when I'm having a shitty day at work- like, "fuck it, I'm doing the best I can, get to the end of the day, get home and have a beer." Obviously, Trips can't openly shit on Reigns, but you can tell Reigns gave him a hard day at the office at Wrestlemania.
 
#26 ·
I'm real funny about watching myself back at this point in time in my career, it's hard for me to see the positives sometimes.
Because there aren't any nowadays Hunter.
 
#28 · (Edited)
It's as if they're bragging about it and I wish fans would simply be quiet when Reigns is out there. You booed Cena for ten years and it didn't accomplish jack. It baffles me how sone fans who are supposed to be so "smart" are simutaneously the dumbest. Hopefully enough people get the memo and stop feeding into the "polarizing" defense. Ratings continuing to plummet helps, but apathy and silence will go a much longer way than booing. They want you to boo so they can skirt around the fact that they absolutely suck at their jobs. Stop giving them an out.



Edit: I'm not surprised about what he said about Dean. That false finish spot at Roadblock solidified that to me, because there's no way he had to do it and there's no way Vince would even be bothered to worry about how legit Ambrose looked in the first place. It was a glorified house show. For HHH to allow Dean to pin him and now to be jobbing clean to Ambrose on the road, he definitely sees something in him. Out of three suits, I think HHH is higher on Ambrose than Vince (and definitely Stephanie who beams like a proud mother when in the ring with Roman but looks visibly repulsed by Ambrose and attempts to passive aggressively shoot on him from time to time.)
 
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