The New York Times has published a new article looking at WWE’s expansion into China, and the article contains several quotes from both John Cena and Triple H. Below are some highlights.
John Cena on the lack of professional wrestling in China:
“There is no presence of product over here,” said John Cena, the square-jawed wrestler and action movie star who has learned to speak some Chinese as part of the push. By tackling the language, he added, “I’m kind of a vehicle to leverage what we’ve done.”
Triple H on exposing China to the WWE product:
“They’ve never really seen anything like us,” said Paul Levesque, W.W.E.’s executive in charge of talent and live events, who is also a partly retired wrestler better known as Triple H. “The athleticism is very real. The story lines and the theater part of it is where they had a hard time with the blurred line of that.”
The article also looks at WWE’s efforts to make Bin Wang, now known as Tian Bin at the WWE Performance Center, a big Chinese star in the company. On the subject of Wang, The Times had the following to say:
Much rides on Mr. Wang, W.W.E.’s first mainland wrestler. The company’s social media team works to make him a star — his verified account on the Weibo social media service recently featured videos of him training at W.W.E.’s huge facility in Orlando, Fla. Seven other mainlanders, six men and one woman, will relocate to Orlando in January.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
