Ricochet Praises Triple H and Shawn Michaels, Says Triple H Came up With Velveteen Dream Spot

Ricochet recently spoke to the With Authority podcast (via Wrestling Inc), where he praised Triple H and Shawn Michaels before revealing it was the former that came up with a spot in which he did a dive in front of Velveteen Dream to show him up in NXT. Here are highlights:

On working with Triple H and Shawn Michaels: “It was great, actually him and Shawn Michaels both. When I was in the Performance Center, Shawn Michaels had a small little class that he would teach. It was me, Undisputed (Era), Johnny Gargano, just a couple of us were in this group, Tommaso Ciampa was in there. So learning from Shawn, and then every week we’re at TV seeing Hunter, getting to learn from him. A lot of the stuff that we performed back there for everyone was partially their ideas. They’re handing it to us. My whole life, when I was older I understood, but when I was growing up, I hated Triple H. I hated him, hated him. But now I appreciate that feeling because that’s what he wanted me to feel at that moment. So I’m like, ‘man, he’s so good’, going back and watching everything. All the little things, him and Shawn both, all the little things when they’re talking, you’re like, ‘oh yeah, that’s totally obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?’ You ask them a question, ‘hey, I was thinking about this. What do you think?’ And they’ll say something and you’re like, ‘oh yeah. That’s exactly what I was thinking about.’ It’s so crazy to go from watching them every Monday to just being there and being able to listen and grow. It’s hard to even not ask questions, we’re always asking questions. But for me, Eric Thomas is a hip hop creature. He always says, ‘when you’re in there with a guru, you better listen. There’s a reason he’s a guru and you’re not a guru. It’s time to listen.’ And that’s what I’m always doing, just listening. Both of those guys, they have so much knowledge to give, so much knowledge.”

On Triple H coming up with his dive moment with Velveteen Dream: “That was Triple H’s idea. We were all going over that segment and trying to figure out an exclamation mark, something that would grab the fans. ‘What can I say, what can I do?’ We had a bunch of scenarios and some of them were good, but none of them just like (popped). And then Triple H, we’re just sitting there and he’s looking and he’s like, ‘it be really cool if you just ran and flipped out of the ring, right in front of him. Could you do that?’ In my head I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know.’ I know the mechanics of it but I’ve never done it. So he asks me, ‘can you do that?’ I’m like, ‘yeah.’ I’m not going to say no. He says, ‘you want to try it?’ I’m like, ‘no, because what if I messed up and I get hurt? I don’t want to try it.’ It was one take. I don’t want a trial, there’s nothing you can really try. I guess you can have a crash pad and I can like, jump onto the pad, but we didn’t really have time. And you still had other people trying to use everything, so I was like, ‘yeah, I’ll just do it when I’m out there.’”

On missing the chance to have a segment with DX: “One time I had a bursa sac in my elbow had busted and it was pretty swollen. Well then, I guess that got infected so they had to cut it open to get the infection out. It was the day of the RAW and I was supposed to do something with D-Generation X, and I was supposed to do the cross chops and say ‘we’ve got two words for you.’ It was going to be a childhood dream. And they were like, ‘no, you can’t go out.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not even wrestling. ‘ They’re like, ‘yeah, but we don’t want you to get infected more.’ I’m like, ‘no guys, please. Let me go out, please.’ They’re like ‘no, we can’t let you go out.’ It was for my own good because obviously, I could’ve gotten more infected or could’ve infected someone else. I was just like ‘no, no no!’ I was so defeated, but the WWE medical staff is A+. Everybody is there for you.”