Triple H spoke with Brian Campbell of ESPN.com about various topics. Here are the highlights.
On NXT: “It’s hard for me to imagine that just a few short years ago, NXT was kind of just a concept that we had,” Levesque said. “How quickly it has become something so much more than that.”
On Brock Lesnar fighting at UFC 200: It’s huge. I think any time that you can have a WWE performer that can cross over into something else and have that kind of a night or a performance, whether that’s making a movie or television show or competing in the UFC, that’s huge. To me, it speaks to the amazing athlete that Brock Lesnar is. To be able to come back at such an elite level after a fairly long period of time doing something different and be that dominant is just amazing to me. We have said it a million times about Brock but I think it’s worth repeating. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime athlete that comes along and is just — you can see it when you look at him. Guys don’t come along that quick, that big, that fast, that aggressive and with that mentality. He is a once-in-a-lifetime combat athlete. Certainly he helps UFC, banking on Brock Lesnar’s name in the very beginning of him becoming a UFC star and showing his dominance in it. And now it’s the same thing, back and forth. They benefit from it, we benefit from it and it has been great. My hat’s off to Brock, he’s an amazing, amazing athlete.
On the difference between booking NXT and the main roster: I think for me that was part of the goal when we were creating NXT, to not just recreate Raw or SmackDown and kind of have some variety and give them something different. To me, our industry is kind of like music. There are all different kinds of genres in music and with Raw and SmackDown you are trying to hit the most mainstream level of enjoyment of the product that you can, sort of like in pop music. NXT is a bit more of a style of music. It’s a bit more intimate; it’s a bit more designed to hit our hardest-core fans and give them something that they will enjoy. To me, at the end of the day, that’s the core of what we do. But it’s still understanding that Raw and SmackDown are completely different where you are trying to hit the biggest audience possible. I’m excited that people like NXT so much, obviously, but I’m excited that we have that variety. If it was all the same, I don’t know that the interest level would be the same, and that’s part of the magic of what [NXT] is. It’s different. One is not better; they are different.
Triple H also talked about how NXT will be affected by the Brand Extension and more. You can read the entire interview here.
