Triple H Offers Frank Assessment Of Vince McMahon's Impact On His WWE Career

It's no secret that WWE's on-screen product has improved since Paul "Triple H" Levesque took over as Head of Creative in 2022, with many fans preferring the storylines, characters and events that "The Game" has presented compared to former WWE CEO Vince McMahon. That said, much of Triple H's success comes from learning under McMahon for 20+ years before having the opportunity to take the lead as Head of Creative, and in a recent interview with "High Performance," Levesque reflected on his time being mentored by his father-in-law.

"I wouldn't be where I am without Vince ... he saw something in me that I had an interest creatively and I think saw that I was pretty decent at it right." He said. "I learned sitting under his learning tree, I learned sitting under Pat Patterson's learning tree, I learned when I started "NXT" as our developmental system, Dusty was down there ... from Taker to Shawn to Bret Hart, everybody that I worked with, I learned things from, but when you learn, especially from mentors, you learn what to do and then what not to do."

Despite being thankful for his guidance throughout the years, Levesque admitted that there were countless occasions where McMahon and himself would disagree creatively, explaining that it seemed the former CEO became more stubborn as he got older.

"There were things that bothered me about the way he did things, certain things of his personality. He would run things totally different than I would and we've talked about that before. Like even when I was running "NXT" or this, he would be like "Why you do it like that?" And I'd be like "Cause it's working for me," ... he was much more controlling especially as he got older."

Levesque compared his relationship with McMahon in recent years to when he first joined Degeneration-X in the Attitude Era, explaining that most weeks there was no script, and that Shawn Michaels and himself usually had free reign to say whatever they wanted on television. However, McMahon would begin to introduce scripts, which Michaels in particular wasn't happy about.

"Shawn crumbled up the piece of paper and he said "Well I ain't saying any of this s**t." Threw it at Vince and we walked out of the office and I was like "Wow we're going to get fired" ... I would see how he dealt with talent sometimes, and there are some things that he did way better than I do and some ways that he handled talent that I think I wish I could handle talent ... Vince could be very harsh with talent."

Levesque shared that many stars viewed McMahon as a father figure, but it meant he would often deal with his "kids," being the wrestlers, in several ways, whether that be good or bad. Triple H explained that he believes in honesty when it comes to communicating with talent, and has no problem admitting if a creative decision was a poor choice.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "High Performance" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.