WWE announced on Sept. 8 that Triple H (real name Paul Levesque) had undergone a procedure at Yale New Haven Hospital after suffering a cardiac event caused by a genetic heart issue. He released a statement a couple of weeks later by writing on Twitter, “I’ve been blown away by the outreach and support from so many people. I’m recovering, doing well, & deeply grateful for all the love in my life. Especially grateful for @ShawnMichaels & all the Superstars & crew @WWENXT! (Steph and the girls loved the snacks!) See you soon,” but since then the updates on his status have been few and far between.
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Stephanie McMahon told TalkSport last week that he is “doing great,” while Shawn Michaels confirmed with Sports Illustrated that he’s been running NXT in Levesque’s absence. There was also a recent video that spotted “The Game” with other WWE officials as they visited the construction site of WWE’s new headquarters. But while on Sunday Night’s Main Event this past weekend, the Wrestling Observer‘s Dave Meltzer provided an update regarding Levesque that didn’t sound as positive.
“He was cited… Vince McMahon and other executives were there, they’re moving into a new office building and he was there while they were doing some work on it. But he’s pretty much out of it (the day-to-day operations). His situation, without going into detail on it, it was very serious,” Meltzer said. “He’s not back. He’s around and he can talk to people, but there’s a lot of stress in doing what he was doing. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
During Levesque’s absence, the NXT brand has undergone some massive changes by rebooting as NXT 2.0. Rumors of the reboot were spreading months prior to its introduction in mid-September, which he addressed back at SummerSlam weekend.
“It’s a funny thing, people talk about shifting. It never really shifted,” he said. “So if you go back and look at the hiring process, (it’s) not the hiring process of a television show, it’s a hiring process of who we’re looking to train and make WWE Superstars. Long term. If you go back and look at it, it hasn’t shifted. It’s been the same process. I don’t negate anybody from a standpoint of, ‘I wrestled some independent stuff,’ ‘Well all right, you’re out!’ That’s not a factor to me, but it’s also not the factor that makes me go, ‘Okay, you’re in.’ When they get in here today, if somebody goes in and hits the ropes perfectly every time, has every roll perfect, does all the stuff, makes it look easy because they’ve been training, that’s not really showing me anything. You should be able to, if you’ve been training, if you’ve been working indies you should be able to do all of that.
“To me, what is the potential long-term? What is that potential? And are they willing to do the work to live up to that potential. Vince used to always say, ‘We’re a variety show’ — we are. In some manner, you need a little bit of everything,” he continued. “That’s the key to all of this. But people hear one statement and then make one (assumption). ‘Now it’s that. No, now it’s this.’ It always has been.”
