With Triple H fully in charge of WWE creative, both WrestleMania 40 and 41 were widely praised by fans. However, the promotion has cooled off somewhat over the past year, and excitement for this weekend's Show of Shows appears muted.
Attempts to boost interest in the card have led to the addition of "celebrities" like Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll (neither means that much to those outside the U.S.). It turns out WWE's Chief Content Officer is aware that making everyone happy all the time is an impossible task.
In a WWE.com interview with Joe Tessitore, Triple H addressed the realities that come with running WWE's creative team and the challenge of finding the right balance between fan-pleasing, headline-grabbing big moments and long-term storytelling.
"You know, it’s a funny thing when people will say...if you’re online or you hear fans talking and they’re like, 'I didn’t like that.' Yeah, I know. Believe me, I’m the first guy going, 'That didn’t work. That wasn’t good. We screwed up there," Triple H shared. "Sometimes you’re putting things out there, you’re like, 'Eh, this’ll be decent. This is not going to be A++.'"
"It has to ebb and flow throughout the year. There are times when you know, 'This show will be good. It’s not going to be guns blazing.' There are times when you know you gotta put your foot on the gas."
"The trick is keeping everybody else, I think sometimes, in the same mindset of, you know, we talked about thinking about tomorrow. All the time, people make suggestions like, 'What if you did this, and this whole thing?' And it’s like, 'Yeah, that’s amazing, it just doesn’t leave us a place to go,'" he continued. "So you have to balance out the 'What do I do today that’s epic,' and 'What do I get to tomorrow?'"
"It’s always a mix and a challenge to balance that out. Nobody bats a thousand, I’m no different, right? But you want to try as best as possible to manage everybody to stay in the same ballpark so somebody’s not trying to swing for the fences while everybody else is trying to hit a double," the WWE Hall of Famer concluded.
It's not an easy job, and say what you will about RAW, SmackDown, and NXT, but they're all faring vastly better than when former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon was calling the shots.
You can check out the full interview with Triple H in the player below.