Triple H Discusses How The “Mae Young Classic” Came to Be

WWE COO Triple H was recently interviewed by Muscle & Fitness Magazine, to promote the “Mae Young Classic” on the WWE Network. He discussed the origins of the tournament, how Mae Young was as a performer and more.

Below are some highlights from the interview:

To start, what was the genesis of the Mae Young Classic?

Paul “Triple H” Levesque: So for Mae Young, much like for the Cruiserweights, I try to look at the industry and then see what I think, where there’s opportunities to create something special, and maybe where there’s not as big of a platform as I would like to see, and be able to flesh that out and make it something more and something bigger. The Mae Young Classic kinda stemmed from that same deal.

Xia Li vs. Mercedes Martinez - First Round Match: Mae Young Classic, Aug. 28, 2017

So in regards to the selection process, it sounds like your goal was to find ‘diamonds in the rough’? Is that why the roster is only NXT and independent superstars? I know there are plenty of female superstars in RAW and Smackdown—Charlotte, Natalya, Becky Lynch, and so on. Did you decide that you wanted to focus specifically on lesser-known superstars to really give them that spotlight?

To me, the Mae Young Classic was about opportunity and breaking through a glass ceiling. And for a lot of those girls that you just mentioned, they had already broken through in some way. They’re already playing in a platform that is an opportunity for them.

The Mae Young Classic was about the opportunity, and that the opportunity for a lot of these women they had never had before. When you look at who’s in the Mae Young Classic, yes, some of those girls are signed to WWE Developmental, but there are more girls that either come just from zero starting with us and had just gotten to a point where they’re ready for something like this, or there are girls that we just kinda signed and this is their first real opportunity to prove themselves.

I was wondering why WWE ultimately made the decision to name the tournament the Mae Young Classic. How did you come to the decision to honor Mae Young with this tournament?

So there [were] a lot of decisions and a lot of names thrown around, and there was a team that went through all that stuff. At the end of the day, we were looking for something that kinda symbolized the transition.

And while I think a lot of people would say, like, you know, “Why didn’t you name it The [Fabulous] Moolah Classic?”, or “Why didn’t you name it after some other female?” To me, Mae was the one person that, when you look at it, Mae Young started at the very beginning of her life. Got into a men’s-only business and against all conceivable odds stayed in that business and competed much like Moolah did or all these other people. But Mae was one of the only ones that was able to really transition into the modern day.

Mae was able to transition into the entertainment component of the Attitude Era in a way that if you look at the Attitude Era and you look at Mae Young, you can look at Moolah standing next to her. But Moolah was just kinda there in the straight man or straight woman in the equation. Mae was the one that was like, “I don’t care. I’ll do it.” You know, she was half the time suggesting stuff that we’re like, “Oh God. Mae, we can’t do that.” You know?

They also discuss the tournament leading to something bigger and more.