Triple H on Booking WWE is More Akin to Marvel Than UFC In Terms of Focus for Shows & Working with Talent for Storylines Doesn’t Create Friction and Instead Creates Partnership

A recent episode of the All In podcast featured WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Levesque’s thoughts about how booking WWE is more akin to Marvel than UFC in terms of focus for shows.

“We tell stories. People within our business sometimes take this wrong, but we don’t write the shows based on ‘That’ll be a great match.’ We write it on the stories that we can create, the protagonist, the antagonist, how does that work with each other, telling stories that can resonate with people that maybe they’ve experienced in their real life, some type of fantastical version of that.

I would say we’re much more akin to, like, the Marvel Universe, where you’re planning out long term where the movies fit and how they go with all the characters than we are direct MMA. At the end of the day, direct MMA is — you’re booking matches and the interest is, ‘That guy’s really good. He’s really good. I’m not sure who’s going to win. Let’s put them together.’ When you get the right personalities involved, then it explodes.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about if there is friction between him and talents when it comes to working together on storylines and him having to shoot down a talent’s pitch for creative ideas.

“It doesn’t create friction. It creates a partnership, which is what I love. One of my favorite parts of my job is to sit down in a room with talent and say, ‘Where do we want to go? How do we want to get there?’ It’s not the conversation of, ‘I want to be the champion.’ Okay, everybody does. ‘What is your story and how do we tell it, and who among the other talent can have a story that goes against your arc to tell a great story?’ Once we start to riff those things….today’s world is different. You go back 40-50 years, Ivan Koloff was a Canadian who played a Russian because we were in the middle of a cold war and it was an easy thing to do. You couldn’t do that character now because the internet would go, ‘He’s from Canada.’ They know the truth. Today, you have to blend who you are in real life with the character that you play and blur this line with the fourth wall of, ‘Was that real? Do these guys really not like each other?’ While you’re putting it together backstage, we’re all agreeing on where we want to go. Then we tell this story where people can’t tell what’s real and what’s fantasy. That’s when it gets magical.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com