Triple H recently spoke with Nick Schwartz for USA Today’s For The Win; you can read a few highlights below:
Triple H on how big of a get Ronda Rousey is for WWE:
Well I think that it’s a huge set of eyeballs, but the thing that I’m most excited about is just the talent. I get it, from a PR standpoint. I get that she’s going to bring in a different level of awareness of WWE on every level, and especially with the Women’s Evolution going on right now in WWE – the Women’s Rumble, the Hell in a Cell match and all the things that are coming down the pike…. The timing is perfect.
But the thing I’m really excited about is the fact that this is not a one-off. It’s not a ‘oh I’m going to teach you to do this, you’re going to do it one time and you’re going to go away.’ She’s here. She’s a talent, and she’s a remarkable athlete, obviously, and a remarkable person.
She just picks this up. She gets it, she understands it. She’s all in, and that’s a really cool thing. To me, that’s what I’m the most excited about, because to me it’s for delivering for our fans that we already have, let alone showing those new ones. The [fans] we already have, I know there’s a couple of them questioning and all that stuff. They’re going to be thrilled. I’m telling you, she is going to win them over because she is just like them. She’s been a fan since she was a little kid. I think it was probably one of her first things that she loved, was WWE.
She’s so into it that her passion boils over when you talk to her about it, and she’s going to knock this out of the park.
Triple H on how hard keeping Rousey’s Royal Rumble appearance was:
It’s harder than you think in this world of social media. As it was coming down to making the decision we wanted to do this, there were a lot of last-minute things. She was in Colombia doing the movie. Trying to get somebody on a flight that is as famous as Ronda is, and as visible as she is – and internationally she’s almost bigger than she is in he U.S. – on a flight, into the country, through customs, clear security, on another flight to Philly, shuttle to a hotel, into the service entry, brought to a bus, hidden in the arena the whole day, and not until right before she walks out there does anybody see her.
It was a monumental task, it took a large team. But it’s all for trying to create a moment for our fans, and trying to create a moment for the world where you just have… while people expect it, they don’t know. And it’s so difficult now because the second somebody is seen somewhere, social media is all over it. The world cannot wait to be the person to say ‘I was the one who saw her,’ or ‘I broke this.’ So when you’re able to pull off something that’s a big surprise like that, it’s great. Trust me, we all kept it very, very quiet on all fronts. Very few people knew… there was only a handful at best that knew.
HHH on when Rousey will start full-time with WWE:
She’ll finish up this movie, and then she’s in. She’ll be at the Performance Center, she’ll be training and working with us every day. And we’ll see where it goes. It is not for lack of desire or motivation, if anything. The two times she has been at the Performance Center training, we’ve had to try to get her to back off because she will train all day and all night if we let her.
