WWE looks to boost its sponsorship revenue as live events return and a key media deal expires

WWE Releases 10 NXT Superstars

WWE released several NXT talents:

* Dexter Lumis

* Malcolm Bivens

* Dakota Kai

* Harland

* Persia Pirotta

* Raelyn Divine

* Draco Anthony

* Vish Kanya

* Mila Malani

* Blair Baldwin

Triple H Addresses WWE NXT Changes, Competition From AEW, Wrestlers Jumping Ship, More

During an interview with The Athletic, Triple H discussed the recent changes to the WWE NXT brand to NXT 2.0, and the new directive to hire hiring younger talent.

On hiring college athletes and younger talent:

“It always bothered me, like, (to get into wrestling in the past) you’ve almost got to be someone with nothing else going on or can’t take no for an answer and dig and dig and dig. But that pool is so small, people trying to get into this business. As I met more people, and you become savvy to the world of athletes, you realize the NFL is letting go 500 players a year. … You look at that massive pool of incredible athletes (from all sports). If you take that pool and 10 or 5 percent have big personalities that would be good for your business, you’re talking about a talent pool that’s 1,000 times bigger than right now.”

On the change to NXT 2.0:

“There was this point where it was on the (WWE) Network, had this cult following, and we needed to get on television. How do we do that? We need more experience, need to professionalize this a little bit to make the product to where fans want to see that. We got them to that place. The pandemic (messed) it up a little bit because it was right when we went on TV and we had to shift our focus, doing it in front of no people. It completely altered what we were doing. We couldn’t recruit or train talent for almost two years. … But the show stayed. Then we said, OK, let’s reboot it and go back to what we originally were. Some of these people won’t be ready for television, but we’re gonna put them on television, and we believe the audience is invested enough that the numbers might come down, but a core group of them will stay, and now you’re creating fresh stars all the time. That’s where we are now. The numbers have stabilized.

People like Bron Breakker, he’s been training for a year. Half the women, they’ve been here a year maybe. There’s a lot that’s just so fresh and new. People used to say the constant churn of NXT was a negative. The churn is what’s great about it. The people here now, hopefully a year and a half from now, none of them are even in NXT anymore, and the ones that make it will be on to “Raw” and “SmackDown. That’s the magic. It truly is the developmental league, the college football, Triple-A baseball. Yeah, they’re not all quite ready to be in that major-league role yet, but you’re discovering them before they become household names. We were talking about this shift anyway. That’s where we were headed. It happened at a period of time where I had to leave for a bit. Luckily, Shawn (Michaels) had been doing it with me all that time, so it was a seamless thing. I stepped out, did what I needed to do, but that team has killed it. They’ve really created a show where you can really say that’s the next generation of stars.”

On competition with AEW:

“As far as the competition aspect goes, it’s great. It makes everybody sharper. You get lazy if you’re all there and everybody goes about their business. The end of the day, it’ll make us better, and we’ll all be better for it. All those things have forced us to be in a better place right now. Not that we wouldn’t have gotten there anyway, but we had to do it quicker in some manner. That’s an important piece of it, right? As long as there aren’t things hurting the business overall, I think any of that stuff is good. If you’re a 6-year-old kid, you turn on the TV, wrestling is on and you like it. Now you’re caught up in it. Then you start sampling all of it. You get to where you’re a huge fan. That’s the money. There’s room for everybody to do it. It’s like saying the USFL or XFL is starting up and the NFL is panicking about market share. It’s just going to increase people’s love for football. If you love football that much, you’ll watch all of the football, and it’s great. But the NFL is not sweating that.”

On former NXT wrestlers in AEW:

“I like all those guys. They helped us get where we needed to get, and I’m thankful for it. The truth is there was a period of time where we were trying to build NXT. We built NXT. Then we were trying to build a brand that could get a television show and sustain it. All those names helped us get there. Whether anybody believed or not they fit on “Raw” or “SmackDown,” those aren’t necessarily my decisions solely, and they’re Vince’s (McMahon) decisions and fans’ decisions; and then, can we continue to do business with them? If they have great gigs, I’m happy for them. I stay in touch with almost all of them. I like to think they came into us here, we taught them a lot, got them to (a higher level) where they learned how to do television, how to be professionals and all that to be successful there. At some point, they might come back with us, or they might never because they don’t fit our brand as well, but that’s OK. They got us to certain places, and I’m thankful for that, and they’re thankful for that, and they’re off to different things. But that doesn’t stop the train. People leave football teams, move to different teams all the time, and it’s great.”

The Rock Debuts New XFL Logo And Vision

Thank you

WrestleMania 38 Shatters Records

WWE announced that WrestleMania 38 became WWE’s highest-grossing and most-attended event in company history. WWE’s annual pop-culture extravaganza saw 156,352 fans from all 50 states and 53 countries converge on AT&T Stadium in Dallas over the course of two exciting nights, surpassing the previous gate and attendance records set by WrestleMania 32 in 2016.

Triple H Appears At WrestleMania 38 Night 2, Leaves His Boots In The Ring

Triple H returned to WWE TV to kick off WrestleMania 38 Night Night Two.

Aside from his appearance at NXT Stand & Deliver on April 2, “The Game” hadn’t appeared on WWE programming since his cardiac event in September 2021. He recently announced his in-ring retirement due to the subsequent health issues he dealt with. With all this in mind, the live crowd welcomed “The King of Kings” with open arms.

After a lengthy ovation, Triple H thanked the fans and stated that he wanted to show his love the best way he could. He then said, “Welcome to WrestleMania” before an extravagant fireworks display officially opened the show. “The Game” then left his boots in the ring as a sign of his retirement.

Triple H Returns To WWE Television To Send Off Tommaso Ciampa After His Loss

Triple H made a surprise appearance after the match as fans in the American Airlines Center in Dallas cheered them both on. The segment was only shown to Peacock Premium Plus subscribers, but the announcers replayed a clip from the appearance.

After the loss to D’Angelo, Ciampa stood tall and looked around the crowd as a “thank you Ciampa!” chant rang out. Ciampa then made his exit up the ramp but Triple H came out and they embraced. Triple H said a few words to an emotional Ciampa in his face, and then raised his arm in the air as the ovation continued.

Triple H and Ciampa then shook hands and embraced again before sharing a laugh and leaving together.

Ciampa paid tribute to Triple H during his entrance by doing The Game’s signature pose on the apron.

Triple H Speaks At WWE Talent Meeting

WWE Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy & Development Paul “Triple H” Levesque made a surprise appearance at a talent meeting in Dallas, TX on Thursday.

WWE Talent Relations head John Laurinaitis kicked off the meeting by saying he had a guest for the wrestlers in attendance, according to Fightful Select. He then introduced Triple H, who hasn’t been seen my most talent since August.

Word is that this was an emotional scene with many elated that Triple H was there.

Triple H WrestleMania 38 Week Notes, Update On The WWE Tryouts

WWE Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy & Development Paul “Triple H” Levesque is in Dallas for the WrestleMania 38 Week festivities.

These are the most appearances Triple H has made since suffering his cardiac event last fall. You can click here for his recent comments on his health and in-ring retirement announcement, and click here for his comments on his WWE workload.

As seen in the photo above, Triple H was present for the talent tryouts in Frisco, TX at the Ford Center at The Star, home of the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and state-of-the-art practice facility. WWE announced these tryouts several weeks back, and noted that they were exclusively for current and recently graduated college athletes.

The tryouts began on Wednesday and will run through Friday. WWE is hosting more than 50 male and female participants with collegiate athletic backgrounds across football, basketball, track and field, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, cheer and dance. Several NFL Draft-eligible college football players were also scheduled to participate in the invite-only event.

WWE NXT and WWE Performance Center staff brought to Texas to help out include WWE Vice President of Talent Development Shawn Michaels, PC Head Coach Matt Bloom, along with PC Coaches Fit Finlay, Terry Taylor and Norman Smiley. Several NXT Superstars who are not booked for Stand & Deliver are also in town, including Harland, Joe Gacy, The Rock’s daughter Simone Johnson, Robert Stone, Indi Hartwell and Dexter Lumis, among others.

Triple H was joined by Dallas Cowboys players Anthony Brown, Jourdan Lewis, Ezekiel Elliott, and Dak Prescott at the tryouts. He cut a promo for fans on the Cowboys social media pages, inviting them to The Grandest Stage of Them All this weekend.

“Hey Cowboys Nation, this is The Game, Triple H. We are here in Texas talking to all of you guys and this is an epic weekend. Everything is bigger in Texas and this weekend is no exception. This weekend, WrestleMania – the most stupendous event in history. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it. Go to seatgeek.com and get there. Don’t miss it,” he said in the video below.

The Game also tweeted on the tryouts and wrote, “The first days of the #WWETryout in Dallas at @thestarinfrisco. Excited to see the progress of the attendees through the rest of the week! Thanks to @EzekielElliott @dak @nino9brown @JourdanJD of the @dallascowboys for stopping by!”

Stephen A.'s full interview with WWE Superstar Triple H

Triple H Announces In-Ring Retirement, Details Genetic Cardiac Issue

Triple H details the health issues he has been dealing with the past several months and announces he’s retiring from in-ring competition.

On Friday, Triple H posted a statement explaining that he would appear on Friday’s new episode of Stephen A’s World on ESPN+ to talk about his health and his future. A clip of that interview aired on Friday’s episode of First Take, and “The Game” confirmed details about his health scare in September.

Triple H confirmed he had viral pneumonia, and symptoms included coughing up blood, inflamed lungs and fluid surrounding his heart. He then spoke about how serious things got after he was admitted to the hospital, explaining that his ejection fracture (the measurement of the percentage of blood leaving your heart each time it contracts) was at a seriously low number and dropping.

“They followed up on it and did an [echocardiogram] and an EKG, and the way your heart pumps out, [it’s] about 55-60 of your ejection fracture, which is a good number. I was at 30. I got a quick text message saying ‘Don’t take time, pack a bag and head to the emergency room. I’ll fill you in on the way.’ So by the time I got to the emergency room, my ejection fracture had gone down to 22, which I was in heart failure, bad. By the next morning,” he explained, “they were sending me in to get an MRI done and I went for a heart cath and my ejection fracture was at a 12. So I was nosediving and sort of at the 1-year-line of where you don’t want to be, really, for your family and your future.

“Let me tell you, you’re at 99%, and it gets real. We have three young girls, [age] 15, 13, 11, and suddenly I come home and I’m a little bit sick. Their dad, who is strong, always, suddenly is in the hospital — and I don’t know if they understood the consequences of it — but there’s moments in there where they’re putting you out for stuff when you think, ‘Do you wake up from this?’ It’s tough to swallow and makes you think differently, as I’m sure you do as you [Stephen A. Smith] come out of your COVID scare. It makes you think differently about life. It doesn’t make you any less driven about the things that you do,” Triple H noted, “but it certainly makes you appreciate the things that you have, your friends, your family.”

Smith asked what the future holds for Triple H as a competitor, and he said that he is done competing in the ring.

“For me, as far as in-ring, which I get a lot, I’m done. No, I will never wrestle again. First of all, I have a defibrillator in my chest, probably not a good idea to get zapped on live TV.”

Triple H serves as executive producer of NXT, as well as Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development and COO for WWE. His final match was a tag team match win with Shinsuke Nakamura against Robert Roode and Samoa Joe that took place at a WWE live event in Tokyo, Japan on June 29, 2019. Prior to that, his final televised match (and final singles match) was a loss to Randy Orton at WWE Super ShowDown on June 7, 2019.

credit WrestleZone