Former WWE star, Karl Fredericks, has sharply criticized Paul “Triple H” Levesque over his public comments about Donald Trump, saying the WWE chief’s praise of the US President became especially difficult for him to reconcile with what he was experiencing as a Native American performer.
Fredericks discussed his WWE experience during an interview with the Augusta Free Press, reflecting on his time with the company while Levesque was publicly speaking favorably about Trump.
Levesque has openly praised Trump’s ability to attract attention and “generate heat.” In an April 2025 appearance on the Flagrant podcast, the WWE Chief Content Officer described Trump as charismatic and said his ability to provoke reactions was “genius.”
Levesque has also held a formal position within the Trump administration’s President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. The White House currently lists him as the council’s vice chair.
For Fredericks, however, Levesque’s comments took on a different meaning as immigration enforcement and issues affecting Native Americans became increasingly prominent.
The former WWE performer said it was difficult being under contract with the company while watching immigration authorities target people he identified with, particularly as he saw senior WWE figures publicly supporting Trump.
“I got the fking President lying on my fking people. The same colonial bullst and lies that we’re fking cannibals. ICE, at the time, was just getting going with this bullsh** while I’m under contract with WWE. White men are writing for me. I got fking immigration detaining, harassing, abusing my people. The fact that they’re doing it to anybody already has me hot, right? But then it’s the fking Natives, you know? My people. What the fk do you mean immigration’s detaining my people? I got to deal with Paul Levesque going on TV and talking about Trump while this is happening: ‘Well, you know, here’s a guy that can generate heat.’ What a stupid fking thing to say.”
Fredericks said the political environment was only one part of a much larger problem. He also felt WWE’s creative approach to his Native American identity reduced his culture to an aesthetic rather than something the company genuinely understood.
“But, again, on my end, they just think my culture’s ‘cool.’ That’s who these people are. It’s all just stuff to them. It’s not f**king real. It was not the environment for me to happily thrive.”
Fredericks’ Wider Criticism of WWE Creative
Fredericks, who performed as Eddy Thorpe in NXT, also recalled an early conversation with Shawn Michaels that he said immediately made him question how WWE intended to present him.
“I’m always fking thinking back to my first week in the (Performance Center), when I finally have a talk with (Shawn Michaels). I’d sent them some matches, and he came over and he was like, ‘Really cool stuff.’ Blah, blah, blah. He gave me a nice little pep talk. Then he was like, ‘I think you’re a babyface, you know, because you’re Indian! I think that’s cool!’ Right off the bat, in my head, that was a red flag. I didn’t expect too much out of Shawn… I could gauge where his awareness was with any of this sh… I don’t want to be Tatanka.”
He subsequently objected to what he considered stereotypical presentation, including scenes that placed the character in settings he felt did not represent modern Native American life.
“I was doing my second or third pre-taped promo, and I’m standing out by a fking fire. I can’t be out in the fking forest. This isn’t a real person. This isn’t someone that my people know.”
Fredericks said his frustrations eventually extended to the scripts he was handed, particularly when they touched on Native American history without sufficient understanding of its significance.
One promo, he recalled, focused on his character leaving a reservation and assimilating into mainstream society. The wording struck Fredericks because of the history of forced assimilation involving Native American children.
“That particular promo was about me wanting to leave the reservation and not worry about my people’s cultural expectations. To leave the reservation and assimilate to the wider world… To me, that sounds like I’m leaving the reservation to go to a fking assimilation school, to go to Carlisle so I can be beaten, and r@ped, and all the s that happened to those kids.”
He said the experience ultimately left him exhausted with trying to change the creative direction.
“I was giving up. I decided that I would just deliver. Every big match, every storyline, just deliver, and they were happy. I just needed to get through this sh**. We can get past this, and I won’t ever have to do it again. But I just never really got there.”
Fredericks left WWE in May 2025 after spending roughly two and a half years with the promotion. He has since returned to independent wrestling.
His comments provide a critical account of his WWE tenure, with his objections extending beyond wrestling storylines to questions about political representation, cultural identity and how Native American performers are portrayed on mainstream television.
For Fredericks, Levesque’s public comments about Trump became part of that broader conflict rather than an isolated political disagreement.
