September 10th, 2014
If you’re into podcasting, and wrestling, Talk is Jericho is about as good as it gets. (Jericho is such podcasting gold that his episode on the Nerdist podcast was absolutely the best interview Chris Hardwick ever did. Even better than the Mitch Hurwitz episode.) In two recent episodes, Jericho has a long interview with Triple H. I cannot possibly recommend it enough.
Some thoughts:
* How great is Jericho? He plays the audio of one of Triple H’s first on camera interviews, when he had just been handed the gimmick of French heel Jean-Paul Levesque. His French accent is atrocious. And Jericho says he sounds Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Gold.
(The bow on top of this incident is that as he’s getting ready to do the spot, Triple H notices that the interviewer, Gordon Solie, is totally hammered. One of the crew members whispers to Triple H, as he’s walking to the camera, “If he collapses, try to clothesline him so you can draw some heat.”)
* Triple H has long been my favorite modern-era wrestler. (Modern era, for me, meaning, guys I watched primarily as an adult and not a kid.) I don’t know that he’s the best talent of his generation–though he’s certainly top five. He was just my favorite. Now I understand why: He’s a normal guy.
I don’t mean normal in the sense of being just an average joe. He’s clearly not. But while most wrestlers have junior varsity rock-star lives, Triple H seems to have approached his profession like any high-achieving, ambitious guy in other industries, might: He focused on the wrestling business early, knew he wanted to work in the WWE, and set about learning everything there was about the company and its history. Then, when he got hired, he showed deference to elders and waited his turn while working hard. He was the first guy at the office and the last guy to leave. He hung around waiting for the bosses to ask him to do stuff and when they did, he said yes. That’s how you make yourself indispensable. And how you succeed. You say yes. You get into position so that when the boss tosses you the ball, you’re ready to catch and run. But you never demand that they throw it to you. That’s for diva wide-outs and office d-bags.
Where most wrestlers approach their jobs as a lifestyle, Triple H seems to have approached it like a career.
Whether you want to be a doctor or a writer or anything else, this is a pretty good formula for success. (And it’s a formula that’s anathema to most of the Millennials I see who want to start their careers in upper-management and then work to start co-opting ownership straight away.)
* In a weird way, Triple H has lived the wresting equivalent of Charles Murray’s Curmudgeon’s Guide.
* Not really being a Shawn Michaels guy, I never fully understood how influential Michaels was to late-’90s wrestling. I guess he really was The Man.
* Triple H tells a story about his first night out with the Kliq. Whoa.
I’ll leave you with this: The tag-match in which Triple H tore his quad muscle, but finished the match anyway. The last four minutes of this is one of the best bits of storytelling I’ve ever seen in the ring. Epic.
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Surely marrying the boss’ daughter plays some role in this?
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Can you make like a supplementary blog to this describing what the hell you’re talking about if, say, one of your readers didn’t know which end of a pair of wrestling trousers to put the legs in? I gather there is a wrestler with a podcast. That’s about all I walked away with, except you liked the dude.
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Probably the best part of Aitch (HHH’s nickname amongst some for those who don’t follow) is how he’s building the future of the company. Vince McMahon would never personally run something like NXT. He’d have no clue what the hell to do. HHH has shattered many tropes and conventions (he’s willing to go out and sign international talent and take them seriously, he’s willing to promote women’s wrestling for the WRESTLING as much as the women’s physical appearance, etc.)
HHH in the mid 2000’s played some awful office politics to get ahead. And he didn’t know when to step away from the limelight. but once he did, man did he ever get awesome, and when he finally came back in the ring, he spent all of 2014 putting over the next generation and making them look like a million bucks.
rearadmir0l September 10, 2014 at 11:43 pm
I’ve literally been pooping my pants and screaming at the wife — OMG HE’S GOT JERICHO ON THE ANNOUNCER’S TABLE!!! OMG WHERE DID HE FIND A SLEDGE HAMMER!!! OMG OMG OMGAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!