Paul “Triple H” Levesque on WWE moving forward with WrestleMania, Roman Reigns pulling out of the show

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Paul “Triple H” Levesque appeared on ESPN SportsCenter on Sunday night to promote WrestleMania and spoke about the decision to move forward with the event. “In this time, I think we believe in WWE, our talent, our staff, our crew, that probably now more than ever, entertainment for people is a necessity,” Levesque said. “And them having something that they can tune into, forget about everything that’s going on or what they have happening in their lives or not being able to leave their house or whatever it is, tune out for a few hours, tune in to something that’s just fantastical, and forget about it all.

“And we feel not only the need to do that, but sort of the obligation to do that for people. Our fans are there for us year round. They’ve been doing it for years. We have a message in the WWE, we say what your jobs are every day is that we put smiles on people’s faces all over the globe and we truly believe that. In this time, more than maybe any other in my memory, people need those smiles right now more than anything, so we choose to carry on and to try to deliver those smiles.

“We’ve taken as much safety precaution as we can. Certainly the health of our talent and our staff is primary and the biggest focus for us. With medical screening and everything that we have done, we’ve followed the CDC’s instructions and tried to be as careful as possible. As we’ve done matches through our various shows… we have sort of scheduled out talent so there’s not so many of them there at a time and sort of shifted the schedule around, so we’ve done everything possible. And having these on closed sets without fans present is not ideal, but we feel like it’s worth it for us, the effort is worth it for us, the stress is worth it for us to be able to put those smiles on people’s faces when they need it the most.” Watch the full video below or via the ESPN YouTube Page.

Powell’s POV: Levesque was also asked about Roman Reigns missing the event. He spoke of the talent working on a voluntary basis, and noted that with Reigns having “a preexisting condition that would make him more susceptible to something it’s understandable.” Levesque said they’ve had very few talents who have chosen not to take part. They did not mention Roman’s replacement, so you can safely check out the interview even if you are avoiding spoilers.