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PAUL LEVESQUE FACES THE MEDA: WWE MONEY IN THE BANK POST SHOW COVERAGE

Paul Levesque thanked all the media in attendace to kick off his portion of the Money in the Bank post-show scrum.

Levesque praised the energy of the fans in Toronto and thanked Trish Stratus for hosting the show.  He said she always has a home in WWE.

Levesque said he wanted to talk about John Cena, saying his contributions are second to none.  There's so much speculation about the Mount Rushmore, but whatever metric you use, Cena is at the top of the list for all of them.  Seeing him from when he was signed to now.  He said Cena is calling his own shot as to how he ends it and that's the best way.  He said no matter what you label what they do, to call your shot and walk out healthy, happy and content, he's happy Cena is able to do that.  2025 is going to be an incredible year and he can't wait to watch it unfold.  Cena will make a lot of memories and moments for people as they make it for him, which is sort of what John always does.  He's excited for John to do that for another year and call it on his terms.  He thanked Cena for everything he's done for WWE, the talents and the industry in general.  He said Cena has been called the "greatest of all time" against Cena's wishes, but Cena is.

He said the Sami Zayn comedy show was popular and something they will do again, he believes.

Levesque said they will have sold over 45,000 tickets by the end of the weekend.

Tonight was the highest gate for a WWE event in Canada tonight.

It appears they broke the record for the MITB viewership tonight.

When they move to Netflix in January, 80% of the globe will be seeing Raw, Smackdown and the PPV events every week.  As time goes on, the rest of the globe will "pull into that as well" so it's an excellent time to go visit people and see them live and in person,

Levesque felt they had a spectacular event and so far, there were no serious injuries beyond bumps and bruises.  They were able to get through the show safely.

He said a lot of people had breakout performances including Andrade, Chelsea Green, Bron Breakker, Tiffany Stratton and Carmelo Hayes.  Breakker's time will come.  It's in him.  

Sami Zayn is an underdog but there's no question as to how good he is anymore.

As to whether there's any plans for a PPV event in Toronto in 2025, Levesque said he's sure Canada will get another massive event before the end of the year but what exactly, they are still working on.  They are looking to come back as much as they can.

Levesque was asked whether there's a WWE Hall of Fame in Cena's future.  He made it obvious that's going to happen but said Cena has earned the right to choose when he wants to go into the WWE Hall of Fame.    He'd love to talk to John about when and who would Cena want to induct him in.

Levesque was asked whether the company was still cooperating with the federal investigation into Vince McMahon.  Levesque said he can't comment on legal matters at the moment.

When asked about Damian Priest not kicking out during his match, he said "human beings in the ring, mistakes happen, it is what it is" and said that as a talent, if he was involved, it would be all he would think about.  It's a shame that's all people will talk about and hit Priest with when he had such a great performance tonight.  The negative outweighs the positive sometimes.  He wishes he could go turn off his phone and reinforce all the positive things he's done to earn and deserve to be where he is as a performer.  Levesque said he feels like he's watching a top guy and watching the champion come out.  He's incredibly proud of him, especially for someone this late in his career.  He would hate to think of him as the guy who didn't kick out that one time.  Everyone's performance was off the charts tonight.  It's just the way the world works.

Levesque was asked what's the next thing that gets him motivated and excited given how strong everything has been under his purview.  Levesque said he appreciates the kind words.  He gets the credit because he sits up there but there's a massive team.  Without Nick Khan, they couldn't do it.  There are major deals that he's involved in.  Lee Fitting and the production and camera crews and the studios that make epic packages like no one else in the world.  That's the team he gets to work with every day.  He's lucky to be able to come to work with some of the most talented people on the planet.  Letting them go, and their all amazing, and they are told to go do their thing and when they do, he's amazing. 

Levesque said he feels they are just getting started.  Shawn Michaels and his team are just killing it with WWE NXT.  He can't say enough good thing about it.  When NXT moves to CW, Smackdown moves to USA and Raw goes to Netflix, they are just getting going.  When they get to the fall and winter, there's going to be a lot.  They have an incredible locker room full of talent and now John Cena is coming back next year.  It's all awesome and it's wonderful to be in a day to day place but also realize that when you think about the future, "they haven't seen anything yet."

On when did he find out about the plan for John Cena's retirement, he said Cena has been talking about seeing the end coming.  For athletes, you get there and with Cena's schedule, it doesn't get any easier to leave and come back and put your body through a trainwreck.  Mentally, you think you can still do it, but your body tells you enough.  He said that the conversation came over time and then there was talk of what the timing would be.  John has earned the right ten times over to be able to do this and Levesque is thrilled to make this happen for him and for all the fans.  They have been thinking about this for awhile.  Tonight was the right time to do it, because secrets are hard to keep so they made the decision to do it tonight.

That was the end of the Levesque discussion.

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