00:00:02
[Music]
00:00:04
14 time WWE World Champion, a two-time
00:00:07
Royal Rumble winner, and now he's behind
00:00:09
the scenes running World Wrestling
00:00:11
Entertainment.
00:00:17
Welcome to the Netflix era.
00:00:23
Whether it be a mentor, a leader, or an
00:00:26
executive, his love and passion for this
00:00:29
industry hasn't changed.
00:00:32
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the
00:00:36
WWE'se's Paul Lac.
00:00:39
[Music]
00:00:42
[Applause]
00:00:47
[Music]
00:00:53
Thank you.
00:00:53
All right. Yeah, thanks for coming.
00:00:54
Welcome.
00:00:56
So, the the audience may not know this,
00:00:58
but I'm a big professional wrestling
00:00:59
fan. Going back to my childhood in
00:01:02
Memphis, Tennessee. In me Yeah. In
00:01:05
Memphis, we didn't have any professional
00:01:07
sports growing up. All we had was uh
00:01:10
Memphis State Tigers basketball and
00:01:12
professional wrestling at the Midsouth
00:01:14
Coliseum on Monday nights. That was
00:01:15
pretty much it. Jerry Lawler was so
00:01:17
popular in Memphis that he could have
00:01:19
been elected mayor and I think he almost
00:01:20
was. So, it was really a a wrestling
00:01:23
town. But, so growing up, I I you know,
00:01:26
I watched you and WWE and I would say
00:01:29
that Triple H was I the premier heel
00:01:32
champion, the unstoppable force of the
00:01:34
whole Attitude era. And uh it's a thrill
00:01:37
to have you here. And since then, you've
00:01:38
transitioned into being the chief
00:01:40
creative officer at WWE and had a um
00:01:43
huge business career. So, I think we
00:01:44
want to talk to you about both those
00:01:45
things. Maybe let's start with your
00:01:47
career as a performer. And I don't know
00:01:50
if people understand everything that
00:01:52
goes into being a WWE superstar, but
00:01:54
you've got to be, first of all, you've
00:01:56
got to be a tremendous athlete. You're a
00:01:58
stunt man because you're doing
00:02:00
tremendously dangerous things. You have
00:02:03
to be able to cut promos, which means um
00:02:05
you're you're basically an actor, but
00:02:07
you also have to write your own
00:02:08
dialogue, and you've got to be, you
00:02:11
know, a charismatic star to all the
00:02:13
fans. There's a lot that goes into it.
00:02:14
How many people are cut out for this
00:02:16
type of work?
00:02:17
Well, it's it's a difficult things. One
00:02:19
one of my tasks now in my job is finding
00:02:22
that next generation of stars, right?
00:02:24
So, you know, we have a robust program
00:02:26
through college athletics, through an
00:02:28
NIL program, through a lot of different
00:02:30
avenues where we find talent, but the
00:02:33
the key to it really is comes down to
00:02:35
charisma and um you know, your innate
00:02:40
ability to connect with people. It's one
00:02:42
of the things about WWE that I think is
00:02:45
remarkable is it's it is a kind of a
00:02:48
combination of everything, right? The
00:02:49
athleticism, the showmanship, the
00:02:52
charisma that you have to have, the um
00:02:55
the media skills that we teach from day
00:02:57
one coming in the door, all of it. when
00:03:00
you leave WWE, whether you've been there
00:03:02
for a long time or, you know, if if
00:03:05
you've been at any level of success, you
00:03:08
are so well suited to do just about
00:03:10
anything in life because I I truly feel
00:03:13
like for a lot of people sometimes can
00:03:16
be a lot less about all the things you
00:03:18
know and how good you are at them as the
00:03:22
charisma to get people to listen to you.
00:03:23
And then if you put the right people
00:03:25
around you, you can have all the things
00:03:27
that you need, but people will follow
00:03:29
that leadership. Right? So even when it
00:03:32
comes to politics, it's amazing to me
00:03:34
when I walk through the White House, um
00:03:36
over the last few months, I've been
00:03:37
there quite a few times, how many people
00:03:39
in the White House are huge fans of WWE.
00:03:43
Um
00:03:43
I mentioned this to you backstage, but
00:03:46
similar to to David, I had a
00:03:48
growing up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
00:03:50
Yes.
00:03:51
There's really there wasn't any
00:03:52
professional sports. Ultimately, we got
00:03:53
the NH didn't get as big a pop as
00:03:55
Memphis.
00:03:56
Memphis did. Yeah.
00:03:57
Yeah.
00:03:58
Uh, and my father and I, the one of the
00:04:00
few things that we were able to bond
00:04:02
over was wrestling and you and then your
00:04:04
whole progression where you started off
00:04:06
as Hunter Hurst Helmsley, which is
00:04:08
really what David is like now, and then
00:04:10
he became more of a, you know, more of
00:04:12
the Triple Hel. But I wanted to ask you
00:04:14
a question about exactly what you just
00:04:16
said. And I want you to sort of walk us
00:04:18
through the characteristics of these two
00:04:21
individuals who have had a very vibrant
00:04:24
career in wrestling, Donald Trump who's
00:04:26
now in politics, and The Rock who people
00:04:29
say may actually go into politics later.
00:04:31
And what you just said is it's an
00:04:33
incredible breeding ground for charisma
00:04:35
and connecting with people.
00:04:37
Yeah. I mean, I think if you go back
00:04:39
through history, even in politics, and
00:04:41
you look at the person that gets elected
00:04:43
in every presidential cycle, it's the
00:04:46
most charismatic person on that stage
00:04:49
that gets elected president. The the
00:04:51
issues are important. The um all the,
00:04:56
you know, the the real life day-to-day
00:04:59
things that are important to people
00:05:00
obviously are there, but at the end of
00:05:02
the day, they're picking who they like.
00:05:04
They're picking who connects with them.
00:05:06
They're picking who is charismatic to
00:05:08
them. Um, you know, Donald Trump was
00:05:11
very good in our world of WWE because he
00:05:16
was okay to be himself. He was okay to
00:05:19
sort of get egg on his face and be
00:05:21
embarrassed sometimes. He was okay to
00:05:23
put it all out there um and just be him.
00:05:26
But he's charismatic. He's larger than
00:05:29
life. He's not afraid to say what's in
00:05:30
front of him, right or wrong. Um, the
00:05:33
Rock is the same way. that connection
00:05:35
with people is really um it's to in my
00:05:39
mind it is what drives the planet. So in
00:05:42
in wrestling there's basically heels and
00:05:45
baby faces or faces
00:05:47
or some variation right nobody in in
00:05:51
today's world there's very few all the
00:05:53
way good all the way bad
00:05:54
right and actually that that sort of
00:05:56
started to change in the attitude era I
00:05:58
remember in the 80s when I was growing
00:05:59
up Hulk Hogan was like this superhero
00:06:02
type yes you know baby face and then and
00:06:05
you know I I weirdly always just rooted
00:06:06
for the heels uh and then Stone Cold
00:06:09
you're more fun
00:06:10
yeah it's more fun and then Stone Cold
00:06:11
Steve Austin came along and he kind of
00:06:13
was a heel but all of a sudden
00:06:15
everyone's like rooting for him like
00:06:16
what happened there and like did
00:06:18
something change in American society or
00:06:20
did the product get more sophisticated?
00:06:22
I think people became more savvy to how
00:06:24
the world really works. Nobody's
00:06:26
perfect. And I I I don't think there's
00:06:29
anybody that is, well, I shouldn't say
00:06:32
anybody. There there's certainly people
00:06:33
that are just evil in the world, but um
00:06:37
you know, most people, the average
00:06:39
person, there are people that are really
00:06:41
good, but somewhere in there, there's
00:06:43
some stuff that maybe isn't um and and
00:06:46
vice versa on that. I think
00:06:49
I have a saying in what I do right now.
00:06:51
As long as the bad guy, the heel is
00:06:54
justified somewhere in his mind that
00:06:56
what he is doing is right, that leads to
00:06:59
the best heal. Right? It because if 90%
00:07:03
of the world disagrees with you, but you
00:07:05
believe no, you're all wrong. I see this
00:07:08
and it is right. You can you can run
00:07:12
down that road. You're not just trying
00:07:13
to be the, you know, the curl your
00:07:16
mustache bad guy heel tying people to
00:07:18
the railroad tracks. It's real. You feel
00:07:21
it and it's real and it's why you want
00:07:23
to get to that place. Right or wrong for
00:07:26
most people. So that the shades of gray,
00:07:28
I don't know that we necessarily lead
00:07:31
society WWE. I wouldn't want to think
00:07:33
that, but I think we reflect it.
00:07:34
Well, you did a very good job in the 80s
00:07:37
and 90s where you would take the
00:07:39
geopolitics. I don't know if this was by
00:07:42
design. And you take a character and
00:07:44
you'd say, "Well, we need to talk about
00:07:45
the Middle East somehow." So, okay, we
00:07:47
have the iron chic, right? And you'd
00:07:49
create these characters that would
00:07:50
reflect the geopolitical tension of the
00:07:52
time. Do did you find that that was
00:07:54
harder to do in this generation or is it
00:07:56
harder to do now just because there's
00:07:58
still so many potholes or
00:07:59
Absolutely. I I just think that if you
00:08:02
stereotyped somebody into a particular
00:08:04
place, a lot of the world would rebel
00:08:07
against that.
00:08:08
Yeah.
00:08:08
Right. not in a positive way. And and
00:08:11
maybe sometimes people that have no real
00:08:14
reason to have a position on either side
00:08:16
of that, right? Um the one thing about
00:08:19
WWE is we're a fun reflection of the
00:08:22
world. It's supposed to be fun. It's
00:08:24
supposed to be entertainment. It's
00:08:26
supposed to be fantastical. It's
00:08:27
supposed to um let you come to an event
00:08:30
for 3 hours and just turn off and enjoy
00:08:34
entertainment and and some type of
00:08:36
representation of the world that is
00:08:38
around you. But people get lost in it
00:08:40
and they begin to take the
00:08:41
representations too seriously sometimes.
00:08:43
So then can you contrast and compare
00:08:45
then maybe WWE and for a long time I had
00:08:48
a really hard time because of my
00:08:50
fascination with wrestling migrating to
00:08:52
MMA but MMA has really taken over um a
00:08:56
lot of the zeitgeist especially amongst
00:08:58
younger generations of men.
00:09:00
Do you feel pressure to make it more
00:09:02
physical or more like it or how do you
00:09:05
think these two things play in
00:09:07
what what role do they play I guess
00:09:08
maybe in American society? I think
00:09:11
they're total opposites. Like MMA is
00:09:13
just it's competitive. It's competition.
00:09:15
It's that's what it's based on.
00:09:18
Though best when and and you can look at
00:09:21
that world and I don't want to get too
00:09:22
deep into their world, but you have a
00:09:25
Conor McGregor come along. If Conor
00:09:26
McGregor came out of retirement tomorrow
00:09:29
and and said he's fighting in four
00:09:31
months, it would be massive, right? The
00:09:34
amount of people that would gravitate
00:09:35
towards that, the ticket sales, the
00:09:37
viewership would be intense. When's the
00:09:40
last time he fought and when is the last
00:09:42
time he won?
00:09:43
Mhm.
00:09:44
I couldn't even tell you.
00:09:45
It's forever. What what people are
00:09:46
buying is that cult of personality.
00:09:48
Right.
00:09:49
Right. It's the same in our business. We
00:09:51
tell stories. I'm less and and people
00:09:54
within our business sometimes take this
00:09:56
wrong. But I don't we don't write the
00:09:58
shows based on that'll be a great match.
00:10:01
We write it on the stories that we can
00:10:04
create. The protagonist, the antagonist,
00:10:06
how does that work with each other?
00:10:07
telling stories that can resonate with
00:10:09
people that maybe they've experienced in
00:10:11
their real life, some type of
00:10:12
fantastical version of that. Um,
00:10:15
so is there a writer room?
00:10:16
There is a writer room. We have a large
00:10:18
staff of That's awesome.
00:10:19
Yeah, there there's a show right now on
00:10:21
Netflix um called Unreal and it is for
00:10:24
the first time ever a look behind the
00:10:27
scenes at what we do. We let cameras
00:10:29
into the writer room. We let them
00:10:31
backstage at our shows so you see the
00:10:33
production of the shows. You see what
00:10:35
goes into it. You know, there's months
00:10:37
of planning that go into stuff. We're
00:10:40
we're looking now at WrestleMania in in
00:10:43
Vegas in April and what those matches
00:10:45
are going to be and how we want to get
00:10:47
there. What is the storyline arc that
00:10:49
takes us there over time? Um, I would
00:10:53
say we're much more akin to like the
00:10:55
Marvel universe where you're planning
00:10:57
out long-term where the movies fit and
00:10:59
how they go with all the characters than
00:11:02
we are, you know, direct MMA at the end
00:11:05
of the day. Direct MMA is or, you know,
00:11:08
UFC, it's you're booking matches and the
00:11:12
interest is that guy's really good, he's
00:11:14
really good. I'm not sure who's going to
00:11:15
win. Let's put them together. When when
00:11:17
you get the right personalities
00:11:20
involved, then it explodes.
00:11:22
Paul, I want to go back to this iconic
00:11:24
attitude era, which is also what we call
00:11:26
it when Chim has his third glass of red
00:11:28
wine at the poker game.
00:11:29
Yeah.
00:11:31
It gets a little spicy. Um, it got very
00:11:34
physical and there's this sort of
00:11:35
backyard wrestling and there's this
00:11:37
incredible iconic movie, The Wrestler.
00:11:39
Yes.
00:11:40
This does take a toll on your body
00:11:42
although you're not making full contact.
00:11:45
What what toll has it taken on your
00:11:47
body? What toll does it take when you
00:11:49
guys are soaring 10 feet 15 feet in the
00:11:51
air at I don't know what you are at max
00:11:53
weight two 300 lb of just muscle landing
00:11:57
like what happens to your knees your
00:11:59
back the whole thing.
00:12:00
Yeah. It's a physical business. We have
00:12:02
we have a few sayings in our business.
00:12:04
One, it isn't ballet, right? Um and and
00:12:08
that's not to knock ballet because I
00:12:10
couldn't do that. Uh though many people
00:12:12
would want to see me try. Um,
00:12:16
it's it's a physical business and no one
00:12:18
walks away unscathed.
00:12:20
Right.
00:12:20
Right. But we have probably one of the
00:12:23
most robust medical programs in
00:12:26
athletics. Um, so we're scanning
00:12:29
constantly for everything. Um, you know,
00:12:32
physically as well as uh head injuries,
00:12:35
everything, right? So we're way on top
00:12:37
of that. Didn't necessarily used to be
00:12:39
that way. As things have improved, we've
00:12:41
gotten there. Um, you know, the the
00:12:43
trick in our business is to make it look
00:12:45
incredibly physical without being
00:12:48
incredibly physical.
00:12:49
That's where I was going with this is,
00:12:51
you know, it's been Sax's dream. He was
00:12:53
telling us when we were doing the show
00:12:54
notes yesterday during the rehearsal,
00:12:56
it's been Sax's dream all this time to
00:12:59
be involved in wrestling. He feels like
00:13:01
it was like a career path he didn't get
00:13:02
to take. So, is there any way, you know,
00:13:05
given what you've done that you could
00:13:07
lift sacks
00:13:09
right now? Who wants to see a whip? Come
00:13:13
on. Come on. Triple H versus.
00:13:17
So, so there was a pitch for me to do
00:13:19
that here and put uh David through this
00:13:21
table.
00:13:23
I just want to see you lift him
00:13:24
though. When I approached him on it, he
00:13:26
said he was holding out for a bigger
00:13:27
moment in the Oval Office. So, we're not
00:13:29
going to do it here.
00:13:30
Oh, come on now. We know that you can
00:13:32
break freeberg in half. He weighs 110
00:13:35
lbs wet out of the shower. But Sachs, he
00:13:38
did the ompic and he added 10 pounds of
00:13:39
muscle.
00:13:40
How how easily can you lift that man?
00:13:43
It's called a bump, Jason. I'm not I'm
00:13:44
not ready to take some bumps here today.
00:13:47
One of the things that I found
00:13:48
interesting is he's talking about your
00:13:49
fandom, but he's walking around back
00:13:50
here with a handheld uh speaker, but he
00:13:54
had his own entrance music his entire
00:13:56
run backstage, running around getting
00:13:59
ready for the main event of Wrestlemania
00:14:00
before he came out here.
00:14:02
So, you're saying you want to lift me,
00:14:03
right?
00:14:05
All right. Okay. Well, let me ask a a
00:14:08
question on the business of of
00:14:09
wrestling. Um,
00:14:10
you got to sign a waiver.
00:14:11
Yeah, I I'll sign Steph. Let's go. We
00:14:14
see a lot of bifurcation happening
00:14:16
generally in media and content. The live
00:14:18
events are just making so much money,
00:14:20
whether it's concerts or basketball
00:14:22
games, and those industries are seeing
00:14:24
revenue and profits kind of escalate.
00:14:27
And then the traditional broadcast
00:14:29
fiction's kind of dying, like the
00:14:30
margins aren't there, the viewership's
00:14:32
down. How is the bifurcation work for
00:14:35
for for your business digital and kind
00:14:38
of like the content stuff that you're
00:14:40
doing digitally versus the live and like
00:14:42
is digital still is digital going to be
00:14:44
like a growing piece of the business for
00:14:46
some time do you think or is it really a
00:14:47
live experience?
00:14:48
Well, it's a live experience but I think
00:14:50
all those things lead you to the live
00:14:52
experience. So where do you tell the
00:14:54
stories that get you to want to go to
00:14:56
the live event? We tell those stories
00:14:58
across digital platforms. We have uh
00:15:01
right around a billion social media
00:15:03
followers uh across the globe. We're one
00:15:06
of the the largest social presence. Um I
00:15:09
I'll I'm not a stat guy, so I'll screw
00:15:11
some of this up, but uh number one
00:15:13
YouTube channel across all sports. Um I
00:15:16
I'm not sure where we're at, but we're
00:15:17
in the top 10 of YouTube channels across
00:15:20
everything. Um you know, our social
00:15:23
presence is second to none. those
00:15:25
monetize on their own or
00:15:26
they they do they do monetize but we
00:15:28
also see them as drivers to everything
00:15:30
else right so our products now raw airs
00:15:34
domestically in the US on Netflix but
00:15:36
dem
00:15:38
um is viewed globally on Netflix every
00:15:41
place else right so outside of the US
00:15:44
Raw Smackdown all our shows are on
00:15:48
Netflix globally Monday nights on
00:15:50
Netflix globally Tuesday nights uh NXT
00:15:53
which is our our sort of um AAA baseball
00:15:57
or our college football if you would
00:15:59
that that airs on the CW cross
00:16:01
broadcast. Um Friday nights we're on USA
00:16:05
uh with NBCU still. We have Saturday
00:16:08
night's main event on Peacock. We just
00:16:09
did
00:16:10
Does your audience still have an
00:16:11
affinity for live? Are they still big
00:16:13
into
00:16:13
one 1,000%. So our our biggest events
00:16:17
are PLE's. We just did a a game-changing
00:16:19
announcement where we're we're moving
00:16:21
them over to ESPN here starting up and
00:16:24
you know nobody does largecale
00:16:27
build to events like ESPN does. So that
00:16:29
will be massive for us. Um you know
00:16:32
we've always sort of been in the
00:16:33
forefront of that. When
00:16:36
when WrestleMania started, it was um
00:16:41
closed circuit, you know, we we
00:16:43
pioneered closed circuit entertainment
00:16:45
where you would go to a theater and
00:16:46
watch the broadcast. We pioneered uh
00:16:49
pay-per-view industry when streaming was
00:16:53
just coming into play. We were one of
00:16:54
the first movers into we had our own WWE
00:16:57
network. So when it it was kind of
00:16:59
Netflix and us um we then realized that
00:17:02
over time that's going to be a tech war
00:17:04
that we're not suited for. It's not what
00:17:06
we do. We pulled out of that. We went
00:17:08
over to Peacock. Um we're now on
00:17:11
Netflix. We're on ESPN. You know, we're
00:17:14
across the board.
00:17:15
Can you just bring us behind the scenes
00:17:17
in this negotiation because you guys
00:17:18
just signed a huge licensing deal. Maybe
00:17:20
you want to tell folks
00:17:21
the size of it, but how did you bid
00:17:23
people against each other and what were
00:17:25
the different things that different
00:17:26
folks wanted? Well, the the beautiful
00:17:28
thing about us is with the amount of
00:17:30
content we do, we're 52 weeks a year
00:17:32
live. So, when you when you talk about a
00:17:34
content company that puts out
00:17:36
entertainment, we are live Monday nights
00:17:39
uh two to three hours depending on on
00:17:42
the on the evening on Netflix. Tuesday
00:17:44
nights two hours on CW, Friday nights,
00:17:47
two hours and half the year is three
00:17:49
hours on USA.
00:17:52
uh you know once a month a 3hour plus
00:17:56
PLLE uh Saturday night's main event
00:17:58
quarterly or more per year that's that's
00:18:01
all live that's all content that we're
00:18:03
putting out on a regular basis um to go
00:18:06
back to the live event experience our
00:18:10
live event you know our ticketing our
00:18:12
live event experience numbers are off
00:18:14
the chart and that's global we were just
00:18:16
in Paris um we did the stadium in Paris
00:18:20
uh we did Leon France on a Friday night,
00:18:23
a PLE on a Sunday night in a stadium in
00:18:26
Paris, France, where we had 30 plus
00:18:29
thousand there, and then we did U Monday
00:18:32
Night Raw from Paris in that same
00:18:34
stadium with a little over 20,000 there
00:18:36
for TV the next night, came straight
00:18:38
back to the US. So, it's it's every
00:18:41
single week that amount of live content.
00:18:43
That's incredible. 500 hours a year.
00:18:45
Yeah. But the way to see us is live. Uh,
00:18:50
this will date me. And if anybody is a
00:18:52
fan of the band Kiss, Kiss when they
00:18:55
were in the 70s were like the hottest
00:18:58
live act in the world, but they weren't
00:19:01
selling albums. They thought if there's
00:19:03
a way we could just get people to
00:19:05
experience what we do live on an album,
00:19:08
it will change the game for us. They did
00:19:10
a live one.
00:19:12
It exploded. When when live albums
00:19:15
didn't sell anything because it captured
00:19:17
them live. It's the same for us. I say I
00:19:21
I say this all the time. If we want to
00:19:22
make a WWE fan, if we're working with a
00:19:25
partner and they're kind of on the fence
00:19:26
or they're not super into what we do, we
00:19:30
bring them to what we do live. We bring
00:19:31
them to WrestleMania. We bring them to a
00:19:33
stadium show. We bring them to an arena
00:19:35
event. And when you have 30,000 people
00:19:39
to, you know, 50, 60, 80,000 people in a
00:19:42
stadium going insane, it is electric.
00:19:48
there is no way that you leave there and
00:19:50
go eh
00:19:50
you think that's the antidote for social
00:19:52
media
00:19:55
I think social media leads you to it but
00:19:57
I think for a lot of people and this is
00:19:59
just my theory but I think co that
00:20:01
moment in co started to maybe show
00:20:04
people that like objects aren't where
00:20:06
it's at that experiences
00:20:09
same same
00:20:10
are where it's at
00:20:12
and
00:20:14
you know especially shared experience so
00:20:17
when you talk about, you know, your
00:20:18
relationship with your dad. That was
00:20:20
your thing. I hear that all the time.
00:20:24
50% or more of our audience comes with a
00:20:28
child, come comes with a family member.
00:20:31
40% of our our our fan base is women.
00:20:34
We're one of the most diverse sports, if
00:20:37
you want to look at it that way, or
00:20:39
entertainment products out there. But
00:20:41
the thing that I love the most is when I
00:20:43
look in the crowd, when I'm running an
00:20:44
event, I'm in the back and they're
00:20:46
panning that crowd on camera and I see
00:20:48
what I clearly see as a grandfather with
00:20:51
their kids and their grandkids sitting
00:20:53
all together freaking out over the show.
00:20:56
And you know, you know that grandfather
00:20:58
was into a Bruno San Martino and the dad
00:21:01
was into The Rock or or Stone Cold and
00:21:04
the kids now are into Roman Reigns or
00:21:08
Ria Ripley or, you know, um it's it it's
00:21:11
amazing. And it binds families together.
00:21:14
It gives them something to enjoy
00:21:15
together. and those those shared
00:21:18
experiences.
00:21:19
At the end of the day, to me, a car is
00:21:21
only worth the value of if you pack it
00:21:23
with your family and you go somewhere
00:21:24
with it and you remember the ride.
00:21:26
That that to me is it. It's the rest of
00:21:28
it is amazing.
00:21:29
You were at the White House for the
00:21:31
presidential fitness challenge being
00:21:33
relaunched.
00:21:34
Yes.
00:21:34
And uh we've talked a lot on the pod
00:21:36
about this next generation. Maybe too
00:21:39
much screens, too many video games, not
00:21:40
enough in person, and obviously fitness
00:21:43
is a is a big problem there. So, how how
00:21:45
do we get these kids off the computers
00:21:47
and then get them doing physical
00:21:49
activity and really enjoying life?
00:21:51
Because when we grew up in the 80s, we
00:21:53
didn't have screens. We were out in the
00:21:55
streets. We were, you know, free range
00:21:58
kids.
00:21:58
Everybody on this stage, I'm going to
00:22:00
say, right, your parents sent you out
00:22:02
the door, said, "Come back when the
00:22:03
street lights turn on."
00:22:04
That was it in Brooklyn. Yeah.
00:22:05
Yeah. I mean, that's what you did,
00:22:06
right? And and it's how you grew up.
00:22:08
It's how you lived and the experiences
00:22:10
that you had and figuring out how to
00:22:12
entertain yourself,
00:22:13
right? the boredom leading to
00:22:15
creativity.
00:22:16
Yeah. Um and and it was very physical
00:22:19
and you grew up physical. We need to
00:22:21
change that back to people and and get
00:22:23
them to realize that that physicality,
00:22:26
there's enjoyment in that physicality
00:22:28
and there's success in that physicality.
00:22:30
One one thing for me when I was a kid
00:22:32
and I first wandered into the gym and I
00:22:35
learned who Arnold Schwarzenegger was,
00:22:36
who I consider one of the great American
00:22:39
uh success stories of all time.
00:22:42
He he had a blueprint in his mind as a
00:22:44
young kid of what he saw. He saw a a
00:22:47
bodybuilder named Rege Park and thought
00:22:49
to himself, I follow that blueprint. I'm
00:22:51
going to be like Reg Park. I'm going to
00:22:53
become the biggest bodybuilder of all
00:22:54
time. I'm going to get into Hollywood.
00:22:57
I'm going to take over Hollywood. Then
00:22:58
I'm going to get into politics and I'm
00:23:00
going to do right like he saw this
00:23:01
blueprint. He did it. I saw that same
00:23:04
blueprint for me, right? But what taught
00:23:07
me to do those things was athletics.
00:23:10
It started with the physical. started
00:23:12
with the physical. The gym does not
00:23:14
you,
00:23:15
right?
00:23:16
Yes.
00:23:16
If if you go in the gym,
00:23:17
no safe spaces at that gym.
00:23:19
You either work hard.
00:23:21
You wouldn't like it, J.
00:23:22
Eat right.
00:23:23
Eat right.
00:23:24
You want to do the bench press after
00:23:25
this? We can do it. Me, you, and my
00:23:28
organiz.
00:23:29
I can organize a fitness challenge right
00:23:31
here, right now.
00:23:32
Oh, let's go.
00:23:33
Let's go.
00:23:34
We'll do an all-in fitness challenge.
00:23:36
Paul, let me ask you. So, you had a
00:23:38
blueprint in your mind. I remember, you
00:23:40
know, I I've seen you interviewed before
00:23:41
and when you were coming up in the
00:23:42
business, you were learning from guys
00:23:44
like Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair
00:23:46
and you were a student of the game and
00:23:48
then you incorporate that into your
00:23:49
character. Your character was called the
00:23:51
game. It then hit another level. So you
00:23:53
clearly, you know, you were leading the
00:23:55
development of that character and I
00:23:57
think got over to another level when
00:23:59
somehow the character and yourself
00:24:02
somehow you hit some sort of Yeah.
00:24:04
joined. I guess what does that do in
00:24:07
terms of the creative friction that you
00:24:09
deal with now running the talent because
00:24:10
they have their own blueprints in their
00:24:12
mind about where they want to go with
00:24:13
their career but you as running the
00:24:15
overall creative have a direction where
00:24:17
they want to go how much friction does
00:24:19
that create it doesn't create friction
00:24:20
it creates a partnership which is what I
00:24:23
love that one of the favorite parts of
00:24:25
my job is to sit down in a room with
00:24:28
talent and say where do we want to go
00:24:30
where do we want to go with you how do
00:24:32
we want to get there it's not the
00:24:34
conversation of well I want to be
00:24:35
champion. Okay. Okay. Everybody does.
00:24:38
What is what is what is your story and
00:24:40
how do we tell it? And who here uh of
00:24:42
these other talent can have a story that
00:24:44
goes against your arc to combine with
00:24:47
their arc to tell a great story, right?
00:24:49
Once we start to riff those things,
00:24:51
today's world is different. You go back,
00:24:54
you know, 40, 50 years, Ivan Kolaf was a
00:24:58
Canadian guy that played a Russian
00:24:59
because we were in the middle of a cold
00:25:01
war and it was the easy thing to do. But
00:25:03
you couldn't do that character now
00:25:04
because the internet would go like he's
00:25:06
from Canada, right?
00:25:09
It it doesn't work. They know the truth.
00:25:11
So today you have to sort of blend who
00:25:14
you are real life with the character
00:25:17
that you play and sort of blur this
00:25:20
line. blur this line of the fourth wall
00:25:23
of was that real or do these guys really
00:25:25
not like each other or is that really
00:25:27
you know while you're putting it
00:25:28
together backstage we're all agreeing on
00:25:30
where we want to go and then we tell
00:25:33
this story that people cannot tell
00:25:35
what's real and what is fantasy and
00:25:37
that's when it gets magical
00:25:39
ladies and gentlemen let's give it up
00:25:41
for Triple H
00:25:45
thank you
00:25:50
phenomenal phenomenal. Thank you, sir.
00:25:57
[Music]
