Triple H on There Not Being Backup Plan If WWE WrestleMania 42 Main Events Were Affected, Backstage Tension Between Roman Reigns & CM Punk, John Cena Being Host of WrestleMania 42, Jade Cargill In-Ring Work, & Stephanie McMahon’s Impact on WWE

WWE recently released a new WrestleMania Countdown video on their official YouTube channel featuring WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Levesque’s thoughts about how he and WWE did not have any backup plans for the main events of WrestleMania 42 had anything happened to Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, and WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk.

“If you lose your quarterback, if you lose your first-string offensive lineman, if you lose your star center or star guard in the NBA, you have a second-string guy to back him up, and you hope that those second-string guys are pretty good. There is no backup Cody Rhodes. There is no backup Randy Orton, there’s no backup Roman Reigns, there’s no backup CM Punk.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about the upcoming WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Reigns and Punk and the backstage tension between the two at shows.

“This is one where you break down the sport and entertainment aspect of what we do. Very rarely does it crisscross into both. This one crisscrosses into both. Obviously, there’s a tension when they’re in the ring with each other. There is a palpable, you can cut it with a knife, feeling of intensity. That intensity does not stop backstage. So, when they have to be in the vicinity of each other in backstage environments, it is on epic levels of tension. You know, where at any point in time, you will feel like this will go incredibly unprofessionally at any moment. You are just sitting there. You can smell the gas in the air and there are sparks everywhere, and you’re trying to get through it and get it in the ring at WrestleMania before it blows up, before the fire ignites and it goes really, really badly. When you talk about Unreal, this one is real, and real in a way that I don’t think many people can fathom the amount of — you’ll beep this but the moment of ‘f*ck you’ between the two of them is f*cking palpable.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about John Cena being the official host of WrestleMania 42 and him believing Cena’s commitment that he will never wrestle again.

“It’s incredible. In any sport or business or anything else, certain legends that transform the business or the sport itself, John (Cena) is one of those, right? John has become a household name globally, and there’s a period of time where your body just can’t do what you want it to do anymore, and I think for John, to have the moment where he gracefully bowed out in the way that he wanted to was phenomenal for him. But he loves this, and still has this incredible passion for it. It’s funny, he can be on a movie set somewhere and he’ll call me and I’ll talk to him for five minutes and the intensity and the emotion of which he will talk to me about what he wants to talk about — there’s oftentimes where I think to myself, I wonder if he’s that passionate about the movie he’s making? That can be an arduous task, and is he in this moment, like, when he goes back to talking about the passion for this, it’s a different level. I don’t know that answer but, I just know that he loves this. I do believe in his commitment that he will never wrestle, perform in-ring again.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about WWE Women’s Champion Jade Cargill’s in-ring work and his belief that Cargill has gotten more comfortable in the ring compared to when she first arrived in WWE.

“I think there’s a certain time in any sport where… I’ll use boxing as an example, where you can almost see the guy doing the routine that he’s rehearsed. I’m gonna do a four combo. I’m gonna back out, I’m gonna throw a three combo and I’m gonna bob to the left and I’m gonna get out. It’s like they’re thinking through it, and then there comes a time in their career where they’re just flowing. It’s the Bruce Lee thing. They’re like water. Just doing their thing and not thinking. When Jade (Cargill) got here, she was still counting steps. She was trying to put her feet in the right movements, and the right patterns. She was thinking all the time. Now she’s just in there being.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about former WWE co-CEO and his wife Stephanie McMahon’s impact and influence on WWE being “second to none” and her upcoming induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.

“Yeah, it’s so hard to even put in words because also Steph sometimes looks at herself as this inconsequential piece of the business. Yet I believe one of the most influential characters, especially on the women’s side, all the time when we’re out, people come up to Steph and talk about ‘when you were one of the only powerful women characters, female characters on TV at that time. And when I was 10 or I was 12 years old, man, I wanted to be you. I wanted to be that powerful woman in business, the powerful woman that, physically wasn’t intimidated all.’

These things, but forget how impactful that character was and what a big factor it was in the business. And that’s on camera. Behind the scenes to this day and she hasn’t been around for a few years, but to this day, if you walk through here and you bring up her name to anybody, either in this place or the crew, they will say ‘heart and soul’ of the company. Heart and soul of the company. She knew everybody that worked here. I can’t remember names to save my life. Steph knew everybody’s name. Steph knew their families, knew their kids’ names. We would laugh all the time because it would take us 45 minutes to leave the building as we were trying to get out of there when the show would be over ’cause Steph was stopping and saying goodbye to everybody along the way where we’d be like, ‘we’re gonna see him tomorrow at TV. Can we go and get in the car?’ It’s just who she is and her impact on this business is second to none. And I mean that, second to no one. So whether fans fully understand that or not, that it’s hard for me to think of many people that deserve Hall of Fame as much as she does and she doesn’t think she deserves it.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, & 4, F4WOnline.com