As you may or may not have noticed, WWE's on-screen product has looked fairly different since Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over creative control of the promotion.
For one thing, the rapid and unrelenting camera cuts of Kevin Dunn have become a thing of the past, and in their place, a new, more sports-orientated presentation has taken its place. Then there's the focus on long-term booking, the added value placed on factions, and a clear desire to put actual wrestling on television, with wins and losses seemingly playing into the promotion's booking decisions AEW-style, instead of being saved for the PLEs like under the previous administration.
Discussing WWE's new backstage interview strategy in an interview with Superstar Crossover, Sami Zayn credited Triple H for trying something new for his storyline with Jackie Redmond and Gunther, noting that there are a lot of talented people doing great things behind the scenes.
“I don’t know, that might be a Triple H creative direction,” Sami Zayn explained on Superstar Crossover via 411 Mania. “I think they’re doing a lot, and you can actually see it in the production and some of the camera shots and all these things that we’re doing. I think they’re trying to really get outside the box lately and really let the people who are very, very talented — and I’m talking about behind the scenes, that’s why they work here.”
Zayn was then asked about WWE taking their backstage interviews in a more sports-orientated direction, with Redmond asking the “Underdog from the Underground” similar lines of questions to what she might use on a hocky player at her other job. In Zayn's opinion, the new approach is pretty cool, as it allows fans to follow along with his journey in a new, fun way.
“To answer your question about Jackie [Zayn’s interview with Jackie Redmon], it is just like a new approach to interviews with different styles and things like that,” Zayn explained “Some of it’s a little bit more sports-oriented. I thought it was pretty cool, and I think it’s also that I’ve interviewed with her not just the one week when we launched the story, but she’s kind of been like a recurring thread, like, ‘Okay, where are you at now? And then this happened, so where’s your head now?’ And it’s kind of following the journey. I thought it was pretty cool.”
Where in the past, backstage interviews were oftentimes excuses for dirty jokes and questionable creative decisions, Levesque has made a point to treat his interviewers with respect, with Redmond specifically bringing a real sports feel to her role due to her other did with the NHL. While there's still some time for fun and some interviewers are more involved in storylines than others, in the end, Levesque's perspective is notably different than what his father-in-law found appropriate and is widely considered an improvement by many inside the company and out.
Triple H reveals that WWE's creative changes all the time.
Discussing WWE's creative process in a larger interview with ESPN about how WWE landed on their current main events for WrestleMania 40, Triple H discussed how the promotion's creative process has changed over the years, including some insight into how crowd reactions play into their planning.
“Now it's a different time, and the way I do things is slightly different. My career, I learned from being here, but there were things along the way that I always thought I would do differently. In this time now, I get to make those calls, and with a large team of people. Whether people will want to believe it or not, I think we were sort of looking at this as here's where we're going to go to get this started, and it has the opportunity of going this way or that way,” Paul “Triple H” Levesque told ESPN.
“We always have to call audibles every single week. Everything you do is dependent on reactions. That's what we do as an industry… The beautiful thing with this group and with Cody and Roman and Rock especially, everybody's got their ear to the ground… And then we all just get together and figure the s**t out.”
Welp, there you go, folks; your “Rocky Sucks” and “Let's Go Cody” chants actually did play a role, no matter how small or large, in WWE's creative decision-making. While performers like Bryan Danielson have forced WWE's hands in the past, that was the exception to the rule. No? Now Levesque is actually using fan input as a way to maximize his creative calls, which is a welcomed contrast to the promoter before him.
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