Triple H on Collaborating with CM Punk Being “One of My Favorite Things at TV”, Differences Between His & Vince McMahon Booking Style, The Rock Wanting to Do What’s Best to Help WWE, Praise of Donald Trump & Wrestling’s Influence on Him

A recent episode of the High Performance podcast featured WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Levesque’s thoughts about his working relationship with CM Punk and collaborating with Punk being one of his favorite things for WWE shows.

“We’ve had a couple of moments since his return — like, there was one moment where [after his return] and they had told him something creatively and they told me, ‘He does not like this.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, I’ll talk to him.’ Went and talked to him and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ You know, told him the creative. And he was like, ‘No, it’s good, whatever.’ And I was like, ‘I know you don’t like it, everybody’s told me. So let’s be open.’ So then he complained about what it was, and I said, ‘Ok, let’s go sit and talk about it [and] come up with something good.’ Like, I’m not married to that stuff, it’s just a thought and an idea,” Levesque said. “And he was angry and he walked away from me. And then a couple minutes later, he came back. He was like, ‘I’m sorry, I have post-traumatic stress disorder still from before. I forget that it’s [different]. I’m not used to this process. I would love to sit down with you and be creative.’

And that sort of changed, like a paradigm shift for us relationship-wise. Now, it’s a funny thing for me to even say: Sitting down and being collaborative with CM Punk is one of my favorite things at TV. Because he shares a very similar view, at the end of the day, of the business as I do. So it’s like fun now for me.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about learning how to book wrestling shows from under former WWE and TKO Executive Chairman Vince McMahon and the differences between his and McMahon’s views on booking.

“When you learn, especially from mentors, you learn what to do and what not to do. There were things that bothered me about the way he did things. Certain things with his personality, he would run things totally different than I would, and we’ve talked about that before. Even when I was running NXT he would be like, ‘Why are you doing it like that?’ ‘Because it’s working for me.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about how McMahon became much more controlling over the booking of shows in WWE the older he became.

“He was much more controlling, especially as he got older, much more controlling. When I first came in, when we started DX, we were just doing our own thing. Nobody was scripting anything. We were doing our own thing, most times we were coming back and he was mad at us and screaming at us, ‘We’re gonna get thrown off the air, goddamnit, don’t do that again.’ We were just like, ‘Whatever,’ and we’d go do it again the following week. Then there was a point where that started to work and we started to really get over and it started to do big business and ratings changed. Now, all of a sudden, we show up to TV one week and they hand us a script, ‘What is this?’ ‘It’s what Vince wants you to say tonight.’ ‘What? He doesn’t tell us what to say.’ ‘He wants to start.’ We’d go into his office, ‘What is this?’ ‘It’s a script. It’s what I want you to say.’ ‘This is terrible. It’s not funny. It’s not us.’ I was much newer. Shawn [Michaels] was Shawn at the time. We’re sitting in the meeting, we read it a couple of times, we had the argument with him and he said, ‘That’s what I want you guys to do. Just go do it.’ Shawn crumpled up the piece of paper and said, ‘I ain’t saying any of this shit.’ Threw it at Vince and we walked out of the office. I was like, ‘Wow, we’re getting fired.’ There were various points of time where he would become very controlling of things. Very specific to how he wanted it to be. It’s his prerogative, he’s the boss. We would all talk about it and be like, ‘It would be better if we did this.’ Even Pat Patterson would come to me, ‘Vince wants to do this thing and it’s so stupid. Let’s do this instead.’ ‘Pat, I talked to him until I was blue in the face. You go talk to him.”

Levesque also gave his thoughts about TKO Executive Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s reaction to John Cena’s heel turn at Bad Blood 2025 and how Johnson wants to do what is best to help WWE.

“He loves it. Rock is at a place in his career with WWE; he wants to do what is best to help WWE. He’s on the board. WWE, wrestling in general, is in his blood. For him now to be part of what we do, Final Boss. He’s the biggest movie star in the world and comes to be a bad guy here and then talks about it in the third person, but he’s this Final Boss character. It’s fun to play and be able to come in to do. He has an insane schedule so he pops in and out and does little things here and little things there. It’s great having him around and be part of it. He likes to be disruptive so in the moment where he’s doing stuff with us at Elimination Chamber and the idea comes up about, ‘What if Cody tells you to get lost and then John turns,’ he’s like, ‘Holy shit. This is amazing.’ We’re all involved in this amazing moment that shifts the business. John resonates, like Rock does, beyond our business. He’s a household name. You don’t have to be a WWE fan to know who John Cena or Rock is.”

In a separate recent interview with the Flagrant podcast, Levesque also gave his thoughts about his praise of current United States President Donald Trump and his belief that Trump being a charismatic character and loving to get “under people’s skin” was something influence by his understanding of WWE and pro wrestling.

“Nick Khan, who is the President of the company, he always has this thing of, ‘The most charismatic guy wins, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter your policy or anything. Whoever the most charismatic guy is in the debates wins.’ You can historically look at that and it’s pretty accurate, right? I think Trump’s ability as an order, like him or hate him, the way he does it, he’s charismatic in so many ways. I think he likes getting under people’s skin. It’s amazing and it’s genius. Do I think he got that from our business? I think he innately understands that. It’s been his whole life. There are a lot of billionaires in the world, I suppose, why was he the most famous one? Why was he the one in PEOPLE magazine every week? Why was he seen as the epitome of that billionaire status? Because of his charisma and character and who he is and the way he can speak about it and do all of those things. He captivates people and it’s why he is where he is.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3