Triple H Explains Why He Took a Jab at AEW During DX's WWE Hall of Fame Speech

Triple H made headlines during D-Generation X's WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony back in early April when he made a comment about All Elite Wrestling. During a bit with every member in the ring, he joked that Vince McMahon would fire them all again, leading to Billy Gunn stating McMahon can't fire him (because he works backstage as a coach for AEW).

Hunter responded by saying, "Billy, le'ts be honest. He will buy that pissant company just to fire you again."

During a media conference call on Thursday morning for the upcoming NXT TakeOver: XXV event, he explained why he took a verbal jab at the budding promotion.

"Billy's there. There's kind of this moment where if you don't sort of say there's an elephant in the room, everybody sort of goes, 'Well how come they didn't mention the elephant in the room?' It was nothing more than that," he said. "And to be honest, with DX if you don't do that then we're sort of not doing what we do. Trust me, a lot of that was also not necessarily laid out and planned."

AEW took a jab of their own at Triple H during Saturday night's Double or Nothing event when Cody Rhodes smashed a throne that called back to some of Triple H's WrestleMania entrances with a sledgehammer. When asked if he or the stars of NXT would continue to trade jabs at each other, he stated he's not focused on the competition.

"For me, I don't really even think about it to be honest. For me, when it comes to this Takeover I want to put out the best product possible. I'm not thinking about anybody else's creative or what they said or didn't say," he said. "I'm focused on this Saturday at Takeover XXV and the brand — making everybody bigger stars coming out of it, putting on the best show we possibly can for fans and continuing to grow the brand."

Saturday's NXT TakeOver: XXV event will take place in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the Webster Bank Arena. The show is notable not only for being NXT's 25th event under the TakeOver banner, but also for being a standalone event that has no WWE pay-per-view taking place in the same city on the same weekend.

The card includes NXT Champion Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole, NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream vs. Tyler Breeze and a four-team ladder match for the vacated NXT Tag Team Championships.