HHH post-TakeOver audio: Damian Priest, hog pen match, injuries
Following Sunday’s nostalgia-driven NXT TakeOver: In Your House event, Paul “Triple H” Levesque talked to the media for 40 minutes about a variety of topics including his recent title change, the future of both Velveteen Dream and Charlotte Flair, Damian Priest’s night, and the infamous hog pen match he had with Henry Godwinn.
The full audio can be heard below by clicking the big red button.
- Injury-wise, everyone was fine coming out of the show. Johnny Gargano was banged up a bit, but should be fine.
- He thought Damian Priest had a star-making performance tonight, saying that it felt like the first time he really performed and was all there in the moment. “He’s arrived.” Now, he said, it’s up to Priest and NXT to take advantage.
- He was asked about his recent change in title and said it was more to reflect the building of NXT as a worldwide brand and that people made more out of the change than should have. With the change, he’s out of the weeds with the responsibility of many of the day-to-day tasks with talent and events he had to handle.
- He talked about how training environments for the PC weren’t available to them until recently so they are starting to ramp things up again. Talent have been doing film sessions with coaches, acting classes online, etc, to stay busy, especially for those who would have been working on Florida house shows.
- He was asked about whether the hog pen match with Henry Godwinn was penance for “the curtain call”. The dates didn’t line up, but he talked about how much he loved that match and working with Godwinn that entire run.
- He was asked about Flair and Dream’s status with NXT. He didn’t give answers on either, but reiterated there is a lot of movement between brands, giving Finn Balor as an example.
- He really loved the nostalgia moments of tonight’s show (Todd Pettingill, ICOPRO and ice cream sandwich ads, etc). He joked that he tried to get Michael Hayes to cut his hair and revive the Dok Hendrix character for the night.