Triple H on Why He Wasn't Hired for the WWE Raw or SmackDown Live Executive Director Roles

Back in late June WWE announced that Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff would be stepping into new roles as executive directors for Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live, taking on new positions in their respective show's creative teams. The hiring came as a shock for a number of reasons, one in particular being that Triple H wasn't given one of the positions considering his success with the NXT brand as executive vice president of talent, live events and creative.

On Thursday morning "The Game" (real name Paul Levesque) hosted a media conference call ahead of Saturday's NXT TakeOver: Toronto event. During the call he was asked about the new hirings and whether or not he was considered for one of those roles.

"You have to understand the way it's laid out, their scope of what they're doing is very specific to both shows. And while I'm still at those shows, there's many weeks that I, due to my schedule and other commitments, I can't be at every single show. I can't be at every Raw or I can't be at every single SmackDown. The scope of the things that I do are way beyond that with live events, with creative, and my role with creative encompasses a lot of different things, it's not the main roster creative. It's shirts and billboards and where everything goes in the world. It's all the creative stuff that, the things that you don't see they just sort of appear, and then everything with talent."

He added that he's "thrilled" Heyman and Bischoff are stepping into their roles as executive directors.

"I think they're going to knock it out of the park," he added.

Later on in the call he was asked a follow-up question about his position in the company — namely if he's the "heir apparent" to Vince McMahon's role.

"There are, in any company of this size and what we do, you have to have succession plans and you have to have [a] next level of where you want to go. I think sometimes people get caught up in just the product that gets put out there. 'Oh, it's just Raw, it's just SmackDown.' The heir apparent to this or that or whatever, there is no heir apparent.

"First of all, anyone who thinks Vince is stepping away or, he'll probably outlive all of us. His mom's in her late 90s and she's still running around, very active," he said. "He's got the gene, he'll probably outlive all of us. There is a succession plan to everything. Those succession plans change on a regular [basis] because this company changes on a regular [basis]. It's a totally different place than it was five years ago."

He said when it comes to who takes over for what in a line of succession, he said he works alongside Vince, Stephanie McMahon and a variety of other members of the company frequently on building and evolving a plan.

NXT TakeOver: Toronto takes place on Saturday night at the Scotiabank Arena.