Triple H On Vince McMahon Following NXT, Sasha Banks And Charlotte Being Upset With HIAC Match, More
Recently on the Gorilla Position podcast, Triple H spoke about the Women's Revolution and the advice he gave Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks following their WWE Hell In A Cell main event match.
According to Triple H, the Women's Revolution occurred due to a confluence of things happening in the world at the time. 'The Game' said that the world has changed and women have gotten more into athletics.
"I think that as The Attitude Era came to be and so many young people, women and young girls as well, were watching the product at that time, they just became this shift. And as the world changed, and women started to get more into athletics, it became more about them as athletes and them being role models in that athletic realm. Just everything started to change and about that time, those girls that were watching that era started to become where they were wanting to get into this industry and what they wanted out of it was change."
In Triple H's estimation, the fanbase was ready for female performers to be perceived differently and he always tries to look at things from the fan's perspective. While 'The King Of Kings' began presenting the women on the roster differently, he just simply gave them a chance knowing they could knock it out of the park.
"I think the fanbase was also [ready for change]. For me I look at WWE and I think 'what would I want to see as a fan? How would I create a Superstar?' and I sit from the fan point-of-view because that's where I started. It's no different with the women. I saw these amazing athletes. And sometimes I would see these amazing athletes that train hard, that dieted hard, train hard, work just as hard as being performers, but weren't always given the same platforms. And I don't want to say 'opportunities'. They were given opportunities, just given to them in a different way. I wanted to change that, so I started to begin to look at them differently as athletes and I just told those stories differently and presented them as the athletes that they were. And it was all the right place, the right time type of thing. At that time, you had Venus Williams and Serena Williams; you had Ronda Rousey coming up; and you just had the US Women's soccer team. You had all these things kind of happening all at once where women and athletics were becoming a much more prominent thing in the forefront of everybody's mind and they were being accepted more as athletes."
Triple H added, "it was really for me giving them the opportunity and knowing they had the ability to go knock it out of the park. It made my job really easy. I give the girls an opportunity and they go and steal the show. And then, I'd give them another opportunity and they'd steal the show. The fanbase was catching on to that and they were clamoring for it themselves."
When asked whether Vince McMahon had to be "talked into" allowing Banks and Flair to main event Hell In A Cell, Triple H shared that McMahon had been following the women in NXT for some time and he had confidence in the female talent to close the show.
"Vince is not going to just grab onto something and throw it out there and hopes that it's good. He has to have confidence in it. He has to have confidence that Sasha and Charlotte are going to close out Hell In A Cell, inside Hell In A Cell for the first time ever and make that entire event deliver."
Triple H continued, "at that point, he had seen it. He had seen it deliver time and time again. In NXT he had seen Sasha. He was backstage for Sasha and Bayley in Brooklyn [New York] for the first time, the Iron Man match that they had. Just all the things that they went through, he was there along the way watching tem. And it was the right time, right moment. And to be honest, there are certain things sometimes where I think Vince had to be talked into something. This is not one, I think, that? I don't know who made the first suggestion, but I don't think he had to be talked into it. I think that they had proven themselves enough that he had the faith and the confidence in them to be able to deliver."
As for what Triple H said to Banks and Flair after their Hell In A Cell match, he divulged that he told them he was proud of themselves. The former 'Beautiful Fierce Females' had probably their weakest championship match of 2016 at Hell In A Cell and 'The Cerebral Assassin' knew they were disappointed with certain things in the match, so he tried to point to the positives. In Triple H's view, being hard on themselves is what makes them so good, so it is a double-edged sword.
"Just that I was proud of them. They're very hard on themselves, which is why they're so great. So there were a few things in there that I knew watching that they weren't happy with, but, when you're that good, usually, you're your worst critic and you're the hardest on yourself. It's why you're so good, so when you can have this epic match, you see the one thing you wish you would have done better and that's really what I was trying to tell them coming back, that they had just made history, that they had just changed the business again, and that they needed to be proud of themselves and put your critique of yourself aside until tomorrow. Today, revel in the moment and enjoy what you have accomplished."
Click here to check out the interview. If you use any of the quotes that appear in this article, please credit Gorilla Position Podcast with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: The Gorilla Position Podcast