In a time when WWE is beginning to lift up a new wave of stars, Je’Von Evans is one of its fastest-rising performers, though he’s not yet 22 years old. Sitting down together for Variety, WWE’s Paul “Triple H” Levesque and Shawn Michaels used Evans as an example while discussing the current state of the industry and the company’s developmental process.

“I just had this conversation with Je’Von the other day, to say, ‘Right now, you’re the kid doing the s**t that nobody else has ever seen before,'” Triple H said. “Focus on punches, kicks, focus on this other stuff. Because a year from now, there’ll be a kid doing s**t that you’re like, ‘How’s he doing that?’ And we’ll all be like, ‘Remember when [Evans] was doing all the cool s**t? Now he’s doing all the cool s**t.”

According to Levesque, Evans is just the latest wrestler to go through this process that many before him already have, including former D-Generation X member X-Pac as well as Michaels himself. While the high-flying moves are something to behold, Levesque believes that the basics, such as selling, are what builds a true connection between a wrestler and the audience.

“I don’t ever tell anybody … all the stuff people told me. ‘You’re going too fast, slow down.’ I feel like all those things will take care of themselves,” Michaels said. “When they make it up to the main roster, then it becomes about psychology and timing and selling and telling a story.”

Levesque reiterated that the pacing of wrestling may change over the years, like all sports do, but the fundamentals will remain important. After their diversion on the industry as a whole, the two executives returned to the topic of Evans.

“He came to me – I talked to him a few weeks ago about changing up his punches and focusing on that, because he’s got the other stuff down,” Levesque continued. “I said, ‘You don’t need to learn a bigger flippy thing. You’ve got that. So go learn how to throw a punch better than everybody else on this roster.'”

The following week, Evans asked Levesque to watch his punches to see if anything had changed and to offer feedback. Once Evans made it back through the curtain, he immediately walked over to Levesque to ask what he thought. “‘Yeah, they’re getting better, dude,'” Levesque recalled saying.

“He’s a good kid, no doubt,” Michaels said. “Thanks for taking him from us.”

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According to Punk, part of the magic of the promo comes from its impromptu nature. The wrestler compared it to a 1991 track written by rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube.

“The greatest diss track of all time is ‘No Vaseline,’ and he wrote and recorded that in one take,” Punk noted. “‘Pipe Bomb is ‘No Vaseline’ in a pro wrestling setting. I did not dwell on it; I did not have days or weeks to think about it.” The veteran further explained that he was mentally checked-out of WWE by the time they let him cut the promo that he had far more issues than Vince McMahon might have realized.

“I know if I wrote that all down or explained to him what I was going to say, he’d be like, ‘No, you can’t say that, you can’t mention Paul [Heyman],'” Punk further claimed, stating that McMahon spit on the ground whenever Heyman was mentioned in conversation. 

“My fans knew what fans were talking about, and that was just enough [of a] peak behind the curtain to get people to go, ‘What is he talking about? Oh, he’s not supposed to say this.'” Additionally, Punk revealed that one of the most memorable moments of the promo happened totally by chance. “When I waved at the camera and said ‘Oh, I’m breaking the fourth wall!’ it’s because I lost my train of thought.”

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For the last twenty years, MVP has been a fixture in the pro wrestling scene, and is continuing to go strong in AEW as a member of The Hurt Syndicate, alongside Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin. But at 52 years old and carrying a laundry list of past injuries and health issues, including Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, MVP is aware that his time in the wrestling ring is growing shorter, even if he’s not ready to call it quits just yet.

On a recent episode of “Marking Out,” MVP discussed his health issues and his wrestling mortality, stressing that he wasn’t retired from in-ring competition just yet, but that he has been thinking about his end date. He proceeded to lay out his ideal retirement scenario, which would see him work a program with someone in AEW, have a match that would end with him leaving his wrestling boots in the ring, and then having one final independent/international tour to wrap things up, before transitioning full-time into a managerial role.

“I would like to leave my boots in the ring, symbolically,” MVP said. “But then I’d like to do just one last indie tour. Just get one last round of indie dates and do some indies in the states and Europe and other countries. And just finally be done, done. Like ‘Okay, this is it man. It’s over now. There is no more MVP, the wrestler.’ 

“I’ll still be around as a vocal representative for The Hurt Syndicate and other talent that may need my services. But I’m ready to stop falling down. The time is coming. And I’m thinking probably next year man. Probably next year will be the end of MVP in the ring as a wrestler. But as long as somebody needs me to speak up for them, they’ll get it.”

If you use quotes in this article, please credit “Marking Out with MVP and Dwayne Swayze” and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription