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What's the story?
Triple H appeared on a recent edition of The World According to Wrestling podcast, where he was asked about WWE's moves into the United Kingdom scene, in particular, how much of it was influenced by ITV's planned World of Sport re-boot.
In case you didn't know...
2017 has seen WWE flirt with a prolonged presence in the United Kingdom. The year began with the United Kingdom Championship tournament, a two-day 16-man single elimination tournament in Blackpool to crown the first ever WWE UK Champion. The tournament was won by Tyler Bate, who has since lost the title to Pete Dunne.
The tournament was supposed to be followed up by a WWE Network show, but that is yet to materialise. Fans speculated that the tournament was only held in an attempt to sabotage ITV's attempts to revive World of Sport Wrestling, the popular British pro wrestling TV show of the 1960s and '70s.
WWE has also dipped its toes into co-operating with independent promotions in Britain, allowing its talent to perform for PROGRESS, ICW and others.
The heart of the matter
On the show, Triple H was asked about World of Sport and the possible influence it may have had on WWE's UK plans. Hunter admitted that it may have changed WWE's timing, but the idea of a UK territory had been in the works for months.
"Did it change our timing a little bit because of when they positioned their show? Yeah, but we are talking by maybe months or something not speeding up the process in terms of getting things done"
Triple H went on to state that he wished all other companies the best, expressing the idea that the more successful other companies are then the healthier the entire industry is, before re-stating his pride regarding WWE's product.
"...if they are successful I'm happy for them and at the end of the day, it all helps the industry, so we just do what we do and I think we do it better than anyone else on the planet"
You can listen to the show in its entirety on iTunes here, and on SoundCloud here.
What's next?
WWE's planned UK show continues to be pushed back, and ITV's World of Sport seems as good as dead for the time being. If WWE intended to put a spanner in the plans of any potential competition in the United Kingdom, they were more than successful.
However, on the other hand, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that the United Kingdom tournament was a financial loss for WWE.
Author's take
It is difficult to decide how to approach this in truth. On the one hand, WWE has such a huge fanbase that using that makes all the sense in the world to promotions like PROGRESS and ICW. The more people that see Dunne, Bate, Mark Haskins and the rest, the better.
The flipside of that is that those promotions end up giving away a little bit of their independence by getting into bed with WWE. These are interesting times for the British wrestling scene.
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