Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh
Triple H: WWE Champs are Selfish, John Cena’s Heel Turn, & How Vince McMahon Never Loses
14 Apr 2025
YERRR – the guys brought in none other than The Game himself, Triple H, to break down the wild world of professional wrestling. From getting punished by Vince and the rise of DX, Triple H opens up about everything: the business, the characters, the pain, the politics – even training Floyd Mayweather. Plus, his insane story of marrying his wife, internet trolls, and why being a babyface is actually harder than it looks. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE 00:00 Everything is Wrestling 00:40 When Triple H was punished 4:25 Fans are super aware + Blurring the Lines 7:15 WCW was poaching talent + MSG show 12:58 Being punished by Vince + Inmates running the asylum 20:17 Going through it + Maximise your minutes 26:07 "S*ck it", Origins of DX + Being a mirror 37:50 Vince finally accepting + Pushing buttons 44:52 The rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin 50:12 Staying safe + Heel to Face 54:18 Being without Shawn Michaels + Reforming DX 1:00:14 Whatever it takes + WCW was doomed to failure 1:07:27 Developing character + Turning heel 1:12:17 How many now understand the game? 1:17:40 Being in the mix + Stephanie McMahon 1:27:37 Moms spot the love + Vince trying to stop it 1:31:51 Getting creative 1:37:28 Quad injury + intense commitment 1:42:06 Biggest pop at MSG + Being a good guy 1:52:13 Babyface have to be selfish + Bad guys' logic 1:56:44 Cena turning heel + The Process 2:00:01 Trump understanding heat 2:02:48 Being babyface is hard 2:10:30 Triple H training Floyd Mayweather + Understanding wrestling 2:16:19 Blending reality + Patience in your storytelling 2:19:58 Internet isn't real, Pivoting + Supreme skillset 2:26:17 Parallels with comedy + Schulz v Logan Paul 2:32:26 Never being full sure + Where is WWE now? 2:35:27 UFC jumping across to WWE 2:38:28 Tommy Invincible is phenomenal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Guys, I'm sure you're all familiar with the old proverb, everything is wrestling. Politics, business, entertainment, every industry thrives on character development, storytelling, and building an audience. Wrestling is a mirror for whatever is happening in culture. So if you want to understand culture, just watch wrestling. And no one understands the art of storytelling.
And brand building better than our guest today is a 14-time WWE World Champion, a two-time Royal Rumble winner, and now he's behind the scenes running World Wrestling Entertainment. He's a man of many monikers. Terra Risen, Jean-Paul Levesque, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the game. But today we're going to call him Triple H. Give it up for our guest. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, first question. I'm doing some research on you, and I come across this story. I don't know if it's legend. You can break it down for us. But basically, one of the worst moments in your career, you get punished unjustly. And because of that punishment, one of the greatest superstars in the history of wrestling is created. Tell us how we get there.
Yeah, I'll just I'll lead you into what's supposed to happen. So at that point in time, I'm I'm starting to get some momentum going in my career. And there is a plan in place that I am going to win a very. especially at the time, was a very prestigious tournament called the King of the Ring.
I would be crowned King of the Ring, which would then launch me into a program or an angle with Shawn Michaels, who was champion. I think at the time when they brought it up, he was either champion at that time or was going to be champion by that time. And I was going to sort of escalate myself up into that higher level of being a heel, a bad guy. And Sean was a babyface champion.
So we were going to go into this program differently. into that year. So it would have been a huge, what we would call push for me in the business. Yeah, yeah. It just would have really been the thing that launched me. Oh, so this is years into the business. This is not early. Yeah, this is years into the business, but early for me in WWE to a degree. Right.
And at that same point in time, you know, the business was going through transitional changes, right? So I'm, at that time, I'm still Hunter Hearst Helmsley. I'm the blue blood snob. There's still like, everybody's got to have
sort of gimmicks and characters that are not necessarily just like you're a wrestler, you're a fireman or a cop or the clown or whatever it is that the gimmicks are larger than life sort of cartoony characters. Um, But backstage, there's a group of us that hang out together that were known as The Click.
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