Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque said on Friday he did not want to go into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, he stated that the announcement was a genuine surprise to him.
The crowd in attendance at the show chanted, “You deserve it.” McAfee noted:
I know you didn’t want it. I saw a lot of people saying, like, Triple H in charge, now Triple H is going in. And for those people, just because I am very lucky to have conversations with other people potentially that have the ability to make decisions, this was the last thing that he wanted. It was forced upon you.
Levesque replied:
Yeah, clearly I’ve accepted it. When they surprised me with it, and Shawn and Taker walked out on stage, honestly, I thought I just didn’t read the format sheet for the town hall we were doing.
I thought, like, “Shawn’s coming out here to promote something, and I didn’t see it on the sheet. Like, I’ve got to start paying more attention to this.” Yeah, it’s an incredible honor. It was an incredible honor to be told by those two.
You know, as we had talked about Hall of Fame, I did not want to do it. We had other plans, and then Nick [Khan] took things into his own hands, and he’s the president, so what can I do?
Elsewhere in the interview, Levesque addressed recent comments in an interview with Peter Rosenberg, when he said, “I wish I could tell people, ‘F–k off’ being a critic. Be a fan. Go watch this and be a fan.’”
He explained:
When Jey Uso won the Rumble, there were a lot of people that had their thoughts, opinions, and comments on that — which is all they are at the end of the day. There are 15,000 people in a venue, and it’s been sold out all the time, yeeting and going absolutely crazy when he comes out. Who do we listen to? The few people or the large crowd?
We have a focus group every single night of a lot of people who are, in that moment, fans. Not being critics, not being anything else. People are allowed to love what they love and dislike what they dislike, and their opinions are their opinions, but you cannot base things on the opinion of some when the majority feels differently. When the majority starts to feel it, that’s when you’ve got to listen.
