Vince McMahon recently stepped down from his role as WWE Executive Chairman after being hit with a lawsuit which saw ex-WWE employee Janel Grant accuse the 78-year-old of all manner of sexual abuse.
The allegations make for horrifying reading, and even putting some of the wilder claims to one side, it's apparent McMahon took advantage of his position to embark on an inappropriate relationship with a vulnerable member of WWE staff.
While McMahon maintains that he'll eventually clear his name, the news was a black eye for WWE in a week which saw them add Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to TKO's board, sign a $5+ billion deal with Netflix, and host the Royal Rumble PLE in front of a near-50,000 strong crowd.
During the post-show press conference for that event, Triple H was asked what knowledge, if any, he had of McMahon's conduct.
"I’m going to do exactly what you expect me to do here," he responded before changing the subject. "I choose to focus on the positive. And yes, there's a negative, but I want to focus on [the positives] and do that."
Asked if he's read the lawsuit, The Game responded, "I think Cody [Rhodes] mentioned it, that we all found out in real-time when you were. And that’s the truth. I’ll go back to what I said before: this is an amazing week for us, and at this point, I don’t even wanna get bogged down with the negatives of it. I just want to focus on the positives and where we’re going."
"I feel like we are in the middle of something that we might not be able to put our finger on now but five, ten years from now we’re going to be saying 'Wow, what a time that was.' I want to focus on that."
Asked what steps WWE takes to keep its employees safe, he added, "I’ll give you the most generalized answer I can. Everything possible. That is a very important thing to us, a very important topic to us. It’s as simple as everything possible."
While there's no denying that Triple H found himself in an incredibly awkward position here - remember, Vince is also his father-in-law - many fans have shared their disappointment with how he chose to respond. In fact, Cody Rhodes has been praised for how he handled the matter:
"I know as far as the news is concerned, we were finding it out and reading the same things that you guys were reading. You said a 'dark cloud' - certainly. As far as TKO, Nick Khan and the Board, [they] clearly took it very seriously. Acted immediately. And looking at the future, I don’t know the answer to that, and I think somewhere is really a probably basic tenet of just - this crew, more than ever, from a roster standpoint, is very family. Never seen anything like this."
"Most of the time wrestling locker rooms are fighting, talking trash about each other, sandbagging each other in the ring, all that nonsense. This crew is very team-based, and perhaps that’s the ingredient. Is everyone looking out for everyone? Being accountable?"
"And I know for me as a performer and a competitor, I’ve been through dark periods in our industry before, and it might sound cheesy, but it’s very reinforcing if you’re in my position, that it’s a time when, 'Hey we got 50,000 people out here, I wanna give them something else from this weekend that isn’t a terrible situation and terrible news.' And I think we were able to do that and obviously as more news comes out, we’ll be seeing it just like you do."