Triple H Breaks Down CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, Why the Build Feels ‘Slightly Weird’ for WrestleMania 41

– During a recent sit-down interview with Peter Rosenberg ahead of WrestleMania 41, WWE Chief Creative Officer Paul “Triple H” Leveseque discussed the premium live event, and he broke down tonight’s Night One main event, featuring CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns in a Triple Threat Match. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Triple H on CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins: “So, I think triple threats are good for the most part when there’s something that they’re chasing like a title and you’re sort of not sure who’s gonna win. They all can make a claim to being the guy that should be the champion, that’s your normal triple threat. Normally, when there’s nothing on the line, triple threats to me are a bit odd. This one was a gamble and was a very calculated gamble on the fact that you have three talent at the top of their game, arguably the peak of their careers, that all have an interaction that is undeniable when you dig into it.”

On why the WrestleMania build this year feels “slightly weird”: “This WrestleMania build is slightly weird because there’s an additional two weeks from Rumble to Mania that normally isn’t there and you had all of these other shows, January 6 Netflix premiere, all the weeks of Netflix that were after that, Saturday Night’s Main Event, you add in all these other things so you sort of had to systemically roll things out in little bits and pieces so it’s a different build. Usually you just, here we go with that boom, put your foot on the gas, here we are. Usually two weeks out of WrestleMania, you’re like, I feel like we’re already there and now you’re trying to figure out how to do shit that’s not redundant. Add two more weeks to that now. So we had to be judicious with how we do things . Some of this, there are places where you can be like, ‘Huh, seems like this took off and then it leveled out and then it’s going to take off again.’ That’s sort of strategic storytelling that in the moment of time, you don’t really see or get, and we’ll see if it works.”

On how the bout could be the beginning of a story: “What’s interesting about this triple threat to me is the fact that you have Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, who arguably have more history than anybody in the company from The Shield, that came in the door together. Seth turning on Roman to begin his singles journey, over time, just all of it with those two. The history is 10, 15 years of it. You add Punk into that equation now, here’s a guy that they were sort of brought in to be with. That goes awry. Punk is really difficult to work with in that time frame, not making any criticisms of that or not, but just factual, right? As is everybody else. But he leaves. A lot of people feel abandoned. A lot of people feel like, that we’re close to him, feel like he walked away from them and the reasonings didn’t make sense and the arguments that were had between the two sort of severed ties that until he walked back in the door, were never brought back together.”

On how Punk’s name echoed in WWE after he left: “You have moments in time where CM Punk leaves here, but his name echoes here. People are saying it’s the downfall and all this shit and then you have guys like Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns that break their backs rebuilding this to a place where it is now bigger than it has ever been before, bigger than it was when Punk was here, bigger than the Summer Of Punk or whatever the deal was, right? Yeah, in their mind, we carried on without you even when you took a shit on us and left and all these things. There’s a lot of animosity there. Now he comes back, changed person, he’s expecting everybody else to be changed and accepting and they’re not. There’s a lot of storyline here, there’s a lot of shoot here of these three guys that have so much, a 10-15 year history.”

On how this match could’ve gone the singles route: “You can make that argument that well, but you could have gotten a single with Seth and Roman, you could have got the single here with Seth and Punk, you could have got the Roman and Punk, right, there’s so much individual stuff there, but there’s also so much collective stuff that I believe you can get this collective stuff off the table and then you haven’t even nicked the surface yet of where this goes between the three guys one at time. Sometimes, when you get to WrestleMania, people think, ‘Okay, but that should be the definitive end.’ Well, maybe we’re just giving you a definitive beginning. Maybe we’re just trying to figure out how to navigate this to get to WrestleMania to start a story that takes you to places that you haven’t thought of yet. That is, I think, the difference in what we do.”

Seth Rollins vs. CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns headlines tonight’s WrestleMania 41: Night One at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada. Tonight’s show will stream live on Peacock in the U.S. and on Netflix internationally.