Eric Young has a lot of respect for Triple H, enough that he briefly worked as a WWE producer as a favor to him.
During a recent interview with Jim Alexander for Reel Talker, Eric Young spoke about his tenure with WWE and how he told Vince McMahon he’d failed as a leader. Young has spoken in the past about telling McMahon this, but now says he still feels that way despite everything that McMahon did for the wrestling business.
“Everything he’s done in the wrestling world, he’s created in his vision. A brilliant promoter, he’s a brilliant booker creatively. I think he’s out of touch and losses are starting to pile up, but I have an amazing life and people in wrestling have an amazing life,” Young explained. “IMPACT exists, AEW exists, Ring Of Honor exists, all of those companies exist — it’s a billion-dollar industry because of him. And if you don’t believe that, you’re wrong. You don’t have to like him as a person, I certainly don’t, but you have to respect what he did for wrestling.
Eric Young then explained that he agreed to work as a producer as a favor to Triple H. He said he probably could still have the job but it’s one he’s not interested in doing full-time. Young went on to agree that if Triple H had more control while he was there, things would have turned out differently for him.
“The producing, when I was there, that was a favor to Triple H,” he noted. “I wasn’t really being used, I was being paid full-time so he said, ‘I think you’d be good at it, what do you think about trying it out?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I’m there anyways so I might as well.’
“Things would have been way different for me. He’s the kind of guy — people say one thing about him and another — I would do anything for him. I’d run through a wall, I would help him hide a dead body, whatever he asked me to do. [laughs] I respect him that much and I owe him a lot. He asked me to do it, so I did it. I did that for 16 weeks and they wanted me to do it full-time and I said I’m not interested,” Young said. “At the time, they said if you want this job at any point — and I believe still to this day — if I wanted this job, it’d be mine. But I’m not interested in it right now, probably not ever, to be honest.”
After being released by WWE, Young returned to IMPACT Wrestling and won the company’s World Championship for a second time. More recently, he created the Violent By Design stable and challenged Josh Alexander for the title at Slammiversary in June.
Read More: Eric Young: There Were Many Missed Opportunities With AEW/IMPACT Collaboration
