When Vince McMahon was finally pushed out of WWE amid a series of serious sexual misconduct allegations, WWE turned to Triple H to take charge of creative. He'd already had a successful run as the head of NXT (before its garish "2.0" overhaul), so the news was welcomed.
There was an immediate improvement in the quality of programming produced by WWE, but recent months have seen Triple H come under fire. John Cena's heel run has fallen flat, and questions continue to be raised about WWE's approach to releases and diversity.
WWE President Nick Khan was recently interviewed by Stephanie McMahon for her "What's Your Story?" podcast, and said neither he nor Triple H allow social media "noise" to dictate WWE's booking decisions.
However, R-Truth being re-hired after his release says otherwise!
"It’s not real life. I try to keep my head down and work," Khan said. "If I’m doing something wrong, someone I trust will tell me. I’m not going to let someone with 14 followers decide how I feel about my day."
"We train our creative team to ignore the noise. Trust the data. Trust your instincts. Don’t let Twitter or Reddit or whatever throw you off your game," he continued. "We try to program for the Universe—not the people who want to criticise you. That doesn’t mean we don’t care what people think, but it means we care more about everyone, not just the loudest voices."
Despite being dismissive of the complaints that frequently flood social media, Khan admitted that he and Triple H aren't always perfect and explained how that affects their approach to running the sports entertainment juggernaut.
"Paul and I, Triple H and I, we make mistakes in business every day," he stated. "The good thing is, we have one another who we can say, 'Hey, I think I did this. What do you think?' 'I don’t think that was the move. Maybe we can think of it the other way.' 'Okay, let’s try that.' Look at WWE. We have two philosophies when we don’t know what to do, copy the NFL, but do the opposite of boxing."
What he's alluding to there is avoiding the convoluted politics that often dominate boxing, treating WWE as a singular entity like the NFL that oversees shows like RAW, SmackDown, and NXT (and now, companies like AAA and Evolve, as well).
You can watch the full interview with Khan in the player below.