Jonathan Snowden of Bleacher Report interviewed Triple H, who will be inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio this Saturday. Below are just a couple of highlights:
Talent like himself, The Rock and Steve Austin changing wrestling in the 90s:
“We were all so busy in the moment, we were all so competitive, we were all so driven to succeed—that’s part of what made it all work. It’s funny how some of the things that were so successful started. The People’s Elbow was something that Rock started doing because we were trying to make Taker laugh at live events. We were all trying to come up with the goofiest stuff we could to make him break character. I think it was Foley at TV one night who dared him to do it live. And we were all on it. ‘We double dog dare you to do it.’ Rock said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And the place erupted.
“We were just trying things man. It was a new frontier and a new horizon. And if he did something cool? I wanted to come up with something cool too. My version of it. We were doing stuff that we wanted to see, that we thought was cool. If Austin cut a great promo, Rock wanted to cut a better one. Foley was the same way. Taker, same deal. We were all just so driven to do it. That’s where it came from. What else can we do to take the crowd further?”
How Evolution started:
“Ric [Flair] and I started watching everybody and we picked Dave [Batista] and Randy [Orton]. There’s a story out there that it started with Mark Jindrak and Dave replaced him, but that’s not true. The office’s suggestion was Jindrak. Dave was always in it. We even shot a vignette of all of us walking down the street together. Jindrak was actually in the shot. It was the first thing we did together, and I felt like he didn’t fit with us. Ric felt it too. So we shot it with all of us walking down the street together—but then I had them shoot one without Jindrak in it.
“I had them shoot one without Dave in it too so Mark wouldn’t go, “Why wasn’t I in it?” We shot all different combinations. But ultimately we went with one that had Dave, Randy, Ric and I. We could feel it with Dave and Randy right from the get-go. There was just a cohesiveness. For whatever reason, Jindrak didn’t fit with us. It was nothing personal.
