Vince McMahon has been widely regarded throughout his career as not only one of the most ruthless wrestling promoters in history, but also as one of the hardest working ones.
At 72 years old, McMahon continues to travel to WWE television tapings nearly single week. Despite having an entire creative team, McMahon still has the final say and the company is molded in his vision in 2018 just as it was over 30 years ago.
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Despite his continued full-time workload, one hot topic in wrestling circles in recent years has centered around the question of who will succeed McMahon when he finally does step down. WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross, who has worked closely with McMahon in front of the cameras and behind the scenes in the past, might be one of the best people to ask that question.
During a recent interview with Business Insider, the topic was broached and Ross gave some clues as to what he believes will happen. That said, he also emphasized the fact that he doesn’t think McMahon will be slowing down anytime soon.
Ross noted McMahon’s drive to continue to take care of himself very well, saying that he’s “very healthy [and] still works out like a crazy man.”
In regards to the future of the company, the name of one man came up: Paul Levesque (Triple H).
“I think that if I’m guessing, and it’s gonna strictly be a guess, that the money would be on, probably, Paul Levesque to be Vince’s successor,” said Ross. “I think Vince is kind of preparing him for that in a lot of ways. You always knew that he was different from the other guys because he was very studious and very under control. He didn’t drink. No drugs. He looked to be a lifer early on, and he got a lot of that from being a fan all his life, growing up in the northeast, New Hampshire. Then, getting trained by Killer Kowalski, who was a great old school guy. So, I think he’s probably the heir apparent.”
Triple H has been the driving force behind WWE NXT and the WWE Performance Center. This week it was announced that NXT is expanding into the U.K. with a new brand, NXT UK. Triple H and Shawn Michaels also teased that a big announcement regarding the women’s division could be coming soon, with some speculating it could be a show centered exclusively around women, possibly a weekly television show or a PPV event.
