Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently explained how he sees his booking style as different from the structure he performed under in the WWE with Vince McMahon.
In an interview with the High Performance podcast, Levesque described that he has a much more open discussion with talent in regards to how he writes WWE programming, a different style than how McMahon was known for creatively.
Levesque said that McMahon was “much more controlling,” whereas he has a style that focuses more on the “collaborative process” of booking a show. “All the ideas are better than just your ideas,” as he explained it.
“Vince could be very harsh with talent,” he said. “As a parent, when I think [back], I saw a lot of talent look at Vince, he’s almost like a father to them. So when you’re in that role, you’re on the road a lot, there’s a certain control factor, and you’re the adult in the room. You’re the parent. Parents can deal with their kids in many different ways: Carrot, stick. Vince was very much the stick. I like to be the carrot.”
His process of shooting ideas back and forth with talent has been a positive experience, as he described it, mentioning how his open discussions with CM Punk specifically have helped repair their relationship in recent years: “It’s a funny thing for me to even say, sitting down and being collaborative with CM Punk is one of my favorite things of TV.”
The way Levesque works on his shows is meant to build a relationship of trust between him and the talent, as he explained it.
“I’m gonna make decisions that you’re not gonna like, but I’m going to explain to you why. I’m going to walk you through the why I believe this is right. And if I was wrong, you go out there and do it and I was wrong, when you come back, I’m gonna say ‘I had to do that and it was wrong. We should’ve done [something else].’ I will say that to people. But I also want them to see in their mind when they reluctantly go out and do something but it works, to have them go like ‘I fought you tooth and nail on that but it worked.'”
