WWE Mount Rushmore: Which Superstars Are the Greatest of All-Time?
By Josh.0
WWE.com
Triple H – Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was chosen because of his efforts to ensure this experiment called the United States continued to flourish. As the author of the Declaration of Independence, his work defined what American was going to become and why they had chosen to break form England. Thanks to his passing of the Louisiana Purchase, he was the first president to begin the greatest expansion of our nation in order to ensure we were strong and able to survive impending hardships.
The WWE owes most of it’s current success to wrestler-turned-executive Paul Levesque (AKA Triple H). He became head of talent development in 2011 which finally put him in a position where he could expand the business to which he had devoted his life. NXT was his idea. The Cruiserweight Classic was his idea. Only a legendary wrestler with his accolades and his backstage clout could pull off such bold experiments for the WWE. Not content to rest on past success, Levesque realized that if the WWE was going to survive, it had to grow. As Vince McMahon’s son-in-law, he was already close to the boss in terms of making his feelings known, but it’s his wrestling background and earned respect that made it possible. Levesque was interviewed by ESPN this past summer and asked why NXT was created:
"“We needed to create the next generation of talent, and the success [and setup] of the WWE had kind of limited where we were getting these athletes from. People around the world still didn’t know how to become a WWE superstar.”"
Thanks to Levesque, Florida Championship Wrestling was rebranded as NXT and moved to Orlando where it could continue to develop future talent but now these efforts would be streamed to an online audience via YouTube and Hulu. For the first time, the WWE Universe was able to follow these men and women on their journey to the main roster. Just as Thomas Jefferson used his status as a Founding Father to work towards expanding the United States, so too did Triple H use his status as one of the most decorated champions of all time to expand the WWE.