Triple H says the biggest challenge of leading WWE’s creative direction is keeping pace with what fans want from the product.
Speaking on The Stephen A. Smith Show, the WWE Chief Content Officer explained that understanding the audience is the most difficult part of his role because fan expectations are constantly changing.
“I think the hardest thing in the world is to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are looking for. The world is always changing, you’ve seen it over the years with WWE,” Triple H said.
He explained that connecting with the audience is something WWE performers learn from the very start of their careers.
“When you start out as a performer, everything about your goal is to make that crowd cheer, to make that crowd boo. Everything is about fan engagement. So you’re taught sort of those nuances from moment one. It’s everything we do.”
Triple H Explained How Wrestlers Can Use The Audience Reactions To Their Advantage
Triple H added that wrestlers quickly learn how to handle both positive and negative reactions from the crowd while remaining focused on entertaining the audience.
“Sometimes you get booed, sometimes you get cheered. You want to sort of tune that out. When it’s positive, you can use it to your advantage. But you sort of tune it out and want to just do your job. Our job, everything about it, is to engage with those fans.”
Using the New York Knicks’ recent NBA Championship victory as an example, Triple H said there is nothing more rewarding than giving fans an emotional payoff after years of investment.
“When you have an underdog story like the Knicks, where they can dig out from underneath years of disappointment and a fan base that has been hanging on hope, if you can deliver like that, then there’s nothing else like it,” he said. “That’s what we aim to give, that emotional feeling. When that delivers for fans, there’s nothing else like it. You see it with the Knicks, you see it with their parade, you see it with the support they’ve gotten. As a group, that’s what we spend our time doing.”
