DALLAS – June 16, 2003 – One day after he retained the World Heavyweight Championship in a Hell in a Cell with Kevin Nash, Triple H spoke with WWE.com.

WWE.com: How are you feeling?

Triple H: Better than expected. I’ve said in interviews before, this is the type of match where you kind of just survive. When it’s all done, you just hope for the best. If you can come away without a permanent injury or something that’ll nag you down the road, you did alright. Right now, I feel alright. I’ve got a lot of lumps and knobs on my head, and I’m kind of sore. But I don’t feel like I injured myself in any way.

WWE.com: You’ve got a lot of scratches on your forehead.

Triple H: Yeah, I got a lot of blood. I’ve got a lot of cuts that you can’t see. I have some on my forehead, but I’ve got a lot that you can’t see from the barbwire.

WWE.com: But you elected not to have stitches?

Triple H: Yeah. Sometimes stitches can be worse almost. If you can get the bleeding to stop, which it did – it took about a half hour to get it to stop – then you can Steri strip it closed and hope for the best. So far it’s stayed closed, so that’s good. A lot of times if it’s still bleeding the next day, I’ll stitch it then. But it seems to be OK.

WWE.com: What did you think about the match?

Triple H: I was happy with it. It’s not up to me to decide, I guess. But as far as the fans’ standpoint, for the RAW stand-alone pay-per-view, I think we delivered. I feel that it was a success.

WWE.com: Would you say that you were feeling slightly more pressure to perform given that it was the first brand-specific pay-per-view?

Triple H: Not necessarily more pressure to perform, but some people looked at that show and said, “Well, it’s half the roster” compared to what they were normally getting on a pay-per-view. My thing is, it’s not that you’re going to get to see half the guys. You’re going to get to see the guys really perform. And that’s what we did. We all took pride in the fact that this was our pay-per-view. When you look at the two groups right now of the brand extension and you say, “Well, there’s two different shows, but it’s all the same company” – it’s really not. We don’t see the guys. We don’t see anybody from SmackDown! until we’re around them. And now with the pay-per-view split, a month ago when everybody saw each other, it was, “See you at SummerSlam.” It’s three or four months away. It really is like two different companies. That creates a lot of pride. I think a lot of us wanted to really put on a hell of a show to show people that RAW is for real.

WWE.com: What’s it like going into a match knowing that you’re really going to be in a lot of pain during and after it, and especially the next day?

Triple H: You don’t go into it thinking that way. You don’t go into it thinking, “Well, that’s really going to hurt.” You go into it thinking to have the best match you can. In this industry, we wrestle 180-200 days a year. You live just about every day with some ache, pain, bump, bruise. Something’s hurt. You always have an injury of some sort. You learn to live with that. It becomes part of your daily existence. This is no different. This is just another day, you’re just a little bit worse than normal. But it’s something that you’re used to dealing with. I think if the average person who is not used to dealing with pain all the time were to do something like this, they’d think they got run over 20 times by a truck.

WWE.com: But would you say you were a little bit relieved today that you didn’t have a match?

Triple H: Yeah. There have been times when I’ve had these matches and I’ve had to wrestle a couple of times the next day. And that’s brutal. But if I’d have had a match tonight, I’d have had a match tonight. That’s what we do. It wouldn’t have been anything different. That’s just what we do.

WWE.com: Do you expect that you’ll be in another Hell in a Cell match?

Triple H: I’m sure I will be at some point. These things have a tendency to keep coming around. But I enjoy them. I like the challenge of them. It’s the one thing about this business – I thrive on the competition of it. I love the business. For me to go out there and have this kind of match, or any other kind of match where can go out and really display yourself and do what you do, that’s the ultimate.