As noted, George Barrios, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon participated in a Needham Fireside Chat in New York City this week. Chris Harrington of Bleacher Report has a lengthy review of the appearance but here are some highlights:
Triple H’s response to a question asking if Vince McMahon is still active & engaged:
“He’s the most active person I know. He works at two in the morning because he’s absolutely dedicated to driving himself and the executive team as hard as possible to create the best product as possible.”
Husky Harris evolving into Bray Wyatt:
“He wasn’t quite connecting with the crowd. Decent hand. Talented kid. Right person. They were going to let him go and I said, ‘Let me take him and do something with him.’ We moved that character to NXT. We put some other people around him that fit the package. Moved him back onto Raw and Smackdown, and he’s one of our most popular superstars Bray Wyatt. I’ll go out on a limb and say in 10 years Bray Wyatt will be one of the most memorable characters in WWE.”
How they prevent “being held up” by talents:
“There is no one performer who is bigger than the WWE. There are superstar performers and megastar performers like John Cena. But he’s still not bigger than the WWE. Why doesn’t anyone ‘hold us up’? Because it would only be a short-term gain. There’s no upside for them behind it
The WWE creative team:
“We have a whole creative writing team that fluxes over time. We produce eight hours of in-ring content each week. It’s a ton of content. There can be anywhere from 20 to 35 writers on with us. There’s a churn rate on that as well. At the end of the day, it’s all about churning out as many storylines as possible and looking at the business as a whole. You can write the greatest story in the world and have an actor with no charisma. The story will tank. They’re interdependent on each other.”
UFC not being competition:
“UFC is not really a competitor to us. I explain it to our talent. They are like boxing. It’s completely different from what we are. We’re like the movie Rocky. We’re a story. We’re a great story that just happens to take place in the wrestling ring. In a boxing match, you’ll watch one time. You’re not going to go back and watch it a bunch of times unless you’re a connoisseur of boxing science. Rocky the movie? You’ll watch over and over again. It’s a triumph story. It’s a love story. We create characters you gravitate to. That you connect with. Whether you hate them or love them. We put them in unique storylines with creative passions. We have good guys and bad guys. That’s what makes the network successful. Who is going to go back and watch the Super Bowl from 1984? Who is going to go back and watch boxing from five years ago? Our product is evergreen.”
