Michael Cole Explains What Makes Triple H Era Better

The differences between the Paul "Triple H" Levesque "era" of WWE and that of Vince McMahon are noticeable to fans of the product, but it's also being felt backstage.

Veteran WWE commentator Michael Cole discussed the changes on "The Pat McAfee Show" ahead of the Netflix debut of "WWE Raw" on Monday. Cole said he believes everyone, from the talent in the ring to the production crew, is reinvigorated by the lightened schedule with fewer live events, as well as the new regime. He said Levesque takes a step back himself, and lets the talent across the board do what they do best.

"I think that freedom has really allowed the superstars, and I know for me and I know for Pat as well, has allowed us to be more entertaining, to be more relaxed, to be able to sit back and enjoy this product as a fan," he said. "Also, who knows characters better than the character? Seth Rollins knows his character better than anyone on the planet, so why not allow him to be able to bring that character forward."

Cole said that Levesque understands he has an "all-star team" in the company, from the talent to the announcers to camera and audio people, and those who handle props. He agreed with McAfee that Levesque has "empowered" everyone behind the scenes as they put all their energy into WWE's television products.

"I've seen everything in this business for nearly 30 years," Cole said. "I have never had as much fun as I've had the last couple of years. Not only working with you, but working with Paul [Levesque]."

credit "The Pat McAfee Show" Wrestling Inc.

WWE’s ‘Monday Night Raw’ Netflix Debut Draws 4.9 Million Views

The first episode of WWE‘s “Monday Night Raw” to stream live on Netflix pulled in 4.9 million views globally.

That is according to Live+1 data provided by Netflix, with a view defined as total hours viewed for the program divided by its runtime. The 4.9 million views came from countries like the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Latin America, but did not include 92 countries/territories where Netflix doesn’t yet distribute WWE, including France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.

The Netflix debut of “Raw” was also viewed by 2.6 million households in the U.S. according to VideoAmp, compared to the 1.2 million households “Raw” was averaging in 2024.

It is difficult to make a direct comparison between the Netflix and USA Network viewership for “Raw,” as linear channels measure their viewership differently than Netflix does. For the sake of some comparison, however, the final episode of “Raw” on USA Network averaged approximately 1.596 million viewers across its two-hour runtime, according to Nielsen Live + Same Day data. From the beginning of October through the end of December, “Raw” averaged approximately 1.65 million viewers per week on USA Network.

During the first “Raw” on Netflix, Roman Reigns defeated his cousin Solo Sikoa in a Tribal Combat match for the sacred ula fala and the title of Tribal Chief. Later, Rhea Ripley defeated Liv Morgan to regain the women’s world championship title, Jey Uso defeated Drew McIntyre, and CM Punk won a brutal main event match against Seth Rollins.

The night also saw John Cena kick off his 2025 retirement tour, while Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson opened the show and later appeared alongside Reigns. WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan made an appearance toward the end of the show, but was met with a barrage of boos from the crowd.

This is the latest in push by Netflix into live streaming. Previously, the streamer aired a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul that drew an estimated average minute audience (AMA) of 108 million live viewers globally. The event peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, with 38 million concurrent streams in the US. Over Christmas, the NFL matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans averaged 24.3 million viewers on Netflix, while the earlier Chiefs-Steelers bout brought in 24.1 million viewers.

source: variety.com

Why Kevin Nash Says Triple H Is A Better Fit To Run WWE Than The Rock

Recently, former WWE creative writer Vince Russo floated a conspiracy theory suggesting TKO board director Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson might replace Paul "Triple H" Levesque with his longtime collaborator Brian Gewirtz. While there doesn't appear to be any truth to this, WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash addressed the possibility on "Kliq This." Nash felt fairly confident that Levesque wouldn't be going anywhere, and used a recent social media clip as proof he's better suited to run WWE's creative than perhaps anyone else. 

"They brought back [Shinsuke Nakamura] and they were working out his entrance," Nash began. "It was on Instagram. And they showed Paul walking the production people through what he wanted. 'I want it lit not so much on the top, but underneath.' And he walked them through this entire process of what he saw personally for this guy's entrance. And I was just like...that's what makes the difference between good and great: Detail. And he's dialing this f***in' in, and I'm saying to myself, Dwayne doesn't have the time for that."

Nash compared the respect WWE talent has for Levesque to the respect players had for legendary New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, noting that both inspire their "players" to perform at their best.  

"It's the Triple H era because...people will run through f***ing walls for him," Nash said. "He gets it. And that's the intangible that Brian Gewirtz or Dwayne, they're not going to have."

At one time, Brian Gewirtz was high on the food chain within WWE's creative team, and was known as the architect behind many of The Rock's promos. Having formed a strong working relationship together, The Rock eventually lured Gewirtz away from wrestling to his Seven Bucks Productions entertainment company. 

Paul Heyman Explains Why He's Always Been A "Triple H Guy"

The term "Paul Heyman Guy" has been used over the years to categorize the wrestlers that Heyman managed, who almost always went on to capture gold and become main event stars. However, according to Heyman in a recent interview with "Notsam Wrestling," he too has people to whom he looks up.

"I can't speak for Paul Leveque, I don't know when or where he may have garnered that level of respect for me, I can tell you: I've always been a Paul Leveque guy," Heyman said.

Heyman then recalled the first time he ever met Levesque backstage during one of ECW's appearances on "WWE Raw." Levesque and Heyman had a conversation about the man who trained Levesque, Killer Kowalski, and Heyman was struck by the young wrestler's vision.

"The vision that he had, that as much as 'I love the past and I'm grounded in the rudimentary and fundamental ways of the business, we got to push it forward;' even back then, in '97, I was like 'Wow, this guy has his finger on the pulse of the future,'" Heyman recalled.

Paul Heyman went on to further describe his current experience working with Paul Levesque in WWE today, and claimed that's it's an absolute honor because "Triple H" is a collaborator. The WWE Hall of Famer further claimed that Levesque listens to the room he's in, takes the best out of everyone's ideas without sacrificing his own big picture, and makes it fit into the parameters of a television show or premium live event.

"That level of collaboration at the top? I don't know anybody in the history of this industry that does it as well as Paul Levesque," Heyman proclaimed.

credit "Notsam Wrestling" and Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Triple H: WWE Has A Little Something For All Ages, You Never Want To Age Yourself Out

Triple H wants WWE to appeal to all ages.

Since becoming the Chief Content Officer of WWE, Triple H has started to push the boundaries of a PG product to appease some of the adults that tune in on a weekly basis. Many fans even suspect that Raw will become an edgier product when it makes the move to Netflix in 2025.

While speaking to Full Press Wrestling for a brief interview, Triple H talked about appealing to all ages can be a tricky thing.

“The tricky part about what we do is you’ve got to have something for the 60 year old, you’ve gotta have something for the 40 year old, you’ve gotta have something for the 30 [year old], 20 [year old], and you gotta have something for the 10 and 6 year old. You’ve gotta have a little bit of something for everybody. The characters, the storylines. You never want to age yourself out, you don’t want to shoot yourself [in the foot by being] too kiddy because even the kids won’t like it then right, they don’t want somebody pandering to them. You’ve got to have something that crosses everything and it’s the trick of what we do, a little something for everyone.”

source: fightful.com

Triple H: I Told Ari Emanuel When TKO Formed, ‘I Just Want To Have Fun. If It’s Fun, I’ll Stay’

Triple H just wanted to have fun.

WWE and UFC officially merged in September 2023 to form TKO under the Endeavor banner. Triple H was already appointed as the Chief Content Officer, but Vince McMahon would often make remote changes throughout 2023.

With the merger, Vince started to become less involved until he eventually resigned as TKO Executive Chairman in January following a lawsuit against him where he was accused of sex trafficking and sexual assault.

With Vince fully out of the picture, Triple H has ushered in a new era.

"I’m loving what I do, that’s the biggest thing for me. When TKO went down and Ari Emanuel talked to me about this, I said, ‘I just want to have fun. If it’s fun, I stay. If It’s not, we’ll figure out something else.’ We’re having fun. I want everyone to have fun. When the signature was playing, I picked up the headset and said, ‘Biggest thing we want to remember tonight, everybody, have fun. Enjoy this.’ If this is fun, everybody loves it. If we have fun making it, you’re going to enjoy watching it. That’s what I believe," Triple H said at the WrestleMania XL press conference.

WrestleMania 40 Shatters Multiple WWE Records to Become Highest-Grossing Event in Company History

WrestleMania 40 broke multiple WWE records and has become the most successful live event in the company’s history.

WrestleMania 40 took place over two nights at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA. Per WWE, the gate for the event was up 78% compared to the previous record set during WrestleMania 39, with 145,298 in attendance across both nights this year. The company also says viewership was up 41% versus last year, while merchandise sales — in partnership with Fanatics — was up more than 20% over last year.

But the live events on Saturday and Sunday nights are just one part of the story. WWE set up a massive presence in Philadelphia from Thursday-Monday. The company, along with Fanatics Events, hosted the WWE World experience at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where fans could pay to get up close with authentic WWE memorabilia from their archives as well as take part in immersive experiences. This was coupled with the WWE Superstore, which featured a wide range of branded merchandise from apparel to toys and beyond.

The April 5 episode of “SmackDown” originated from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, drawing the largest gate in “SmackDown” history. Likewise, the April 8 episode of “Monday Night Raw” drew the largest gate in “Raw” history. WWE also put on the NXT live event “Stand and Deliver” on Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center, which drew a record breaking crowd of 16,545, the most ever for an NXT event.

On social media, over 660 million views were generated across WWE’s social channels, while the WWE YouTube channel had its biggest day ever on Sunday with 67 million views in 24 hours.

WrestleMania 40 featured a number of smash hit matches, most notably the WWE Universal Championship match between Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes on Night 2. On Night 1, the two squared off with the aid of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Seth Rollins, respectively, in a tag team match that marked Johnson’s first match for WWE since 2016.

source: variety.com

Forever

Stephanie McMahon rings in the Paul “Triple H” Levesque era

The Rock comments on the job Triple H has done and how this WrestleMania felt knowing Vince McMahon is no longer involved

“I think that Triple H has done a tremendous job as our chief creative officer, I think that’s his title, he has a few, earned every single one of them. I like ushering in new things and new times and new eras and it feels like in our world here, professional wrestling, it is a new era that we’re ushering in. I talked to Triple H earlier as we were kicking off and kicking off the show tonight and without giving detail on what we talked about, it was a special night for him. This was the beginning of something and marking the beginning of something new for him, under his creative, and I think from a company standpoint, this is an exciting time for the company, for WWE, an exciting time for TKO. You felt the convergence towards the end of the year when the acquisition happened, you felt the convergence in the first quarter of the year as I was fortunate enough to come back and kind of traversed our way to what these storylines could look like, so it’s an exciting time and I think we capped off day one of WrestleMania that we had stated was gonna be the biggest of all time, which is really saying a lot given how many great WrestleManias there has been in the past, so I thought collectively as a company and a team, [it was] a really great show tonight.”

credit 411mania.com for the transcription

Paul Heyman: For The Rest Of My Life, I Will Forever Be A Paul Levesque Guy

Paul Heyman delivered an emotional speech as he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Paul Heyman was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 5. Undisputed WWE Universal Roman Reigns inducted Heyman at the ceremony, which was held in Philadelphia, and the crowd showered Heyman with “ECW” chants.

Heyman delivered a passionate speech as he discussed his career. Among other highlights, he praised WWE Chief Content Officier Triple H and said that he would be a “Paul Levesque Guy” for the rest of his life.