Every one of us has photos from yesteryear we’d rather the world didn’t see.
Sadly, for WWE head honcho Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, being a millionaire wrestling icon doesn’t spare you from that embarrassment.
In 2025, Levesque is the Head of Creative and Chief Content Officer of the world’s biggest wrestling organisation.
In short, this means he controls and has final say on all that fans see on screen – storylines, match outcomes, the building of new stars and the presentation of the final product for weekly shows like Raw and SmackDown and gigantic pay-per-view events including WrestleMania.
He’s rarely seen on screen these days but does still appear on WWE content such as the post-show press conferences after major broadcasts, Netflix documentaries as well as various mainstream appearances – including a recent outing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in the States.
Back in his pomp, Triple H was a force to be reckoned with in WWE. Having broken into the company’s main event scene alongside Shawn Michaels as D-Generation X, working with icons including Mike Tyson and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Branching out as a star in his own right in the years that followed, Triple H became The Game, a multi-time world champion, on screen authority figure and, depending on the year, chief villain of WWE or one of its biggest heroes.
His CV is a glittering one featuring two Royal Rumble wins, 14 spells as a world champion, a King of the Ring success and ten other title reigns, all in WWE alone. He’s also a two-time Hall of Famer, or will officially become one this week when he takes his place in the 2025 Class.
Despite all this phenomenal success, fame and executive-level power, there is still nothing Levesque can do about the things he did – as we all did – when he was younger.
In his mid-20s, still a year or two before he even stepped foot in WWE, Levesque was toiling away in WCW as Terra Ryzing – and several variations on that superb in-ring name. Things changed, and arguably not for the better, when the company decided to change things up for the rising star.
Noting the French origins of his real surname, WCW decided rather lazily – but in true wrestling fashion – that: ‘if he has a French-sounding name, we must make him French’ – and there was born Jean-Paul Lévesque.
To complete the character, the grappler was ordered film promotional videos – promos – in French. The only problem being, of course, that Levesque didn’t speak French. His bosses, undeterred, settled for instructing him to speak ‘in a French accent’, with hilarious consequences.
He told this story during his Tonight Show appearance, recalling defensively: “I didn’t change my name [to Jean-Paul], the company I worked for changed my name to that.
“Because my last name is Levesque, and as a company based in Atlanta in the South, they thought the name was this unique name, which it is not.
“I was called in to interviews and they said: ‘We’re changing your name from Terra Ryzing to Jean-Paul Levesque,’ which I thought, for a moment, might be worse.
“They said: ‘We like your last name, it’s French, now go in the other room and cut promos in French.’”
The now 55-year-old pleaded with WCW chiefs that things had taken a wrong turn – he wasn’t French and didn’t speak it, but they dispatched him to film with an accent nonetheless.
“Well thank god there’s no footage of you as Jean-Paul anywhere,” nudged Fallon, at which point his star guest knew exactly what was coming.
The show then broadcast some 1994 footage of poor young Levesque, as Jean-Paul, complete with his finest French accent. The character proclaimed: “Let me start by apologising to all the people here today, because I know the men, they see the look in the eyes of their women when Jean-Paul walks into the building.
“They fall to the ground; they fall to their knees in awe of Jean-Paul.”
Back in the studio, Levesque looked a little uneasy and red-faced but laughed off the hilarious footage as the gentle prank for which it was intended.
More than 30 years later as he prepares to steer the WWE ship through its first ever WrestleMania on Netflix, he perhaps needn’t feel too embarrassed. Then again, a staggering $250 million net worth – more than three times that of John Cena – probably cushions the blow.
