“You’ll never go wrong if you put yourself in the seats. Make yourself a fan, and you’ll never go wrong.”

These are the wise words of WWE CEO Vince McMahon. They are a lesson that Paul Levesque, his son-in-law and heir apparent to the wrestling empire, says he hears all the time.

Levesque has portrayed the fictional character Triple H for the last 23 years on WWE television. In the ring, the self-proclaimed “King of Kings” is a 14-time world champion. Behind the scenes at WWE’s corporate office in Stamford, CT he is Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative for a publicly traded company, as well as the founder and leader of WWE’s hybrid developmental promotion NXT.

By day a suit-and-tie-wearing businessman with the weight of sports entertainment’s future on his shoulders. By night, a sledgehammer-wielding megalomanic who fights undead demon-wizards and crushes the hopes and dreams of bright-eyed, would-be heroes.

I caught up with Mr. Levesque this past weekend, backstage at NXT Takeover: Chicago, an event featuring wrestlers from all around the world who are essentially “in training” to one day be featured on WWE television.

Despite being exhausted from a long week of travel – including multiple international flights – the energy and excitement following another successful event was immediately apparent. Listening to him rave about the performances and growth of his NXT talent was like watching a proud father after his son or daughter scored the game-winning goal.

As he approaches his 30th year in the business, Levesque shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. In fact, three decades in and he claims to love the wrestling world more today than ever before.

“I love this as much as I did when I saw Chief Jay Strongbow for the first time as a kid,” he told me. “It’s the greatest form of entertainment in the world, to me.”

Levesque is a key figure in WWE’s plans for the future, as the company has been rapidly expanding on a global scale. Earlier this year they ran their first pay-per-view event in the nation of Saudi Arabia, and will be returning to Melbourne, Australia with the hopes of selling more than 100,000 tickets at the MCG. Just today it was announced that a brand new division of the NXT umbrella will be opening across the UK and Ireland.

He compared the business today to a “family reunion” from every part of the globe. It’s that diversity and universal love for the business that helps keeps The Game going.

“70,000 people will sit in a stadium, and they’ve never met each other before, and it’s like going to a family reunion.” Levesque continued, “We go to India and there are people that barely speak the language, but you talk to them for five minutes and you feel like they’re part of the family. It’s the coolest thing.”

When I asked him if it’s possible for him to sit back and watching wrestling as a fan, after all these years behind the scenes in the business, Paul revealed that he and his long-time best friend, WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels will sometimes watch wrestling from backstage “like two little kids going nuts”, stressing that no matter what, “we are just fans”.

“I love it. When it’s done well – and it can be bad – but when it’s done well it’s the greatest form of entertainment. I don’t want to ever get to the day where I’m like, ‘Can we just get this over with?’ If I do get to that point, I should quit.”

The Future of WWE

Prior to interviewing Mr. Levesque we asked the fans over at Reddit’s r/SquaredCircle community to come up with one question that we could ask the future WWE Hall of Famer. Here’s the question we ended up choosing:

“Since it’s inception, who from NXT has surprised him with their overall development as a performer? Truly who was someone he didn’t think would be as big as they are right now?”

Triple H actually gave his response live, on the air during the official NXT Takeover: Chicago post-show press conference. Here’s what he had to say: