WWE announces new program for finding and training talent
 

WWE is definitely not interested in hiring people who've trained to be wrestlers or come from the independents, so it would seem


https://www.wwe.com/article/wwe-nil-...n-line-program

I like the idea. I just wish it wasn’t WWE executing it. I don’t have faith in them to take a prototype and mould it into a star.

I'm not sure a lot of Gen Z college athletes would choose WWE over say the NBA or NFL or MLB...signing the rights to their name and likeness away in their 20s while also giving them the exciting options of paying for their own rental cars and hotel as 'independent contractors'.

i'd imagine this is more for athletes that know they don't really have a shot in any of those pro leagues or play sports that don't have pro leagues on that level otherwise yeah it'd be silly to go the pro wrestling route.

I REALLY like this change in direction. NXT should have stayed full developmental, with experienced wrestlers sprinkled in. Kinda like OVW. You had your young talent like Brock, Shelton, but you had experienced guys like Flash Flanagan, Nick Dinsmore etc.

This "Super Indie" shit they were doing was fun for those funs but counterproductive,.

John Laurentitus going to spend a lot of time at women's volleyball games to recruit future blondes.

I'm guessing they'll mainly go after powerlifters or amateur wrestlers.

Great idea if they stick to it, but they do not have a track record of sticking to a plan. Ill believe it when I see it.

I don't like it.

I might change my mind over time but I'm not crazy about the idea. I like the idea of people WANTING to become wrestlers and then TRAINING to become wrestlers. This just seems like looking for people they hope eventually learn to enjoy doing it.

some of the biggest stars in wrestling history had no intention of becoming wrestlers, though. obviously not to say there's gonna be any guaranteed success here, but it's a smart avenue to explore for sure.

If it doesn't work and leads to the decline of rasslin I'm ok with that too.

They often have to (or feel that they have to) teach new signees the "WWE style" of rasslin, don't they? This seems like a logical step to take so they can avoid that period of re-training.

I agree. Pretty much the majority of 1980's stars were bodybuilders who got told they could make big money in wrestling. If anything at least their rookies will be 22 or 23 years old.

It’s not a bad idea at all. If you just chose people who chose pro-wrestling, you’d miss out on Kurt Angle, The Rock, Brock Lesnar and so many other big stars in even the modern era. Steve Austin got to college on a football scholarship. Even Bryan Danielson played sports in high school.

It’s not the only path to getting noticed. But it does cast a net to some pretty amazing and driven people to segue their athletic success into a different area.

Plus the wrestlers getting called up won't have all the wear and tear from diving off the top rope to the floor in front of 20 people for the past 10 years.

this is excellent. the indy pool is completely incapable of producing consistently marketable talent and far less able to produce stars. failed athletes are a great resource.

The NIL program is a good idea.

NIL can also represent a lot of things:

-Name, Image, and Likeness
-Next In Line
-How much WWE cares about its employees

Or the bad habits or the ethos that doing indy shit is truly rock and roll.

So they're eventually going to go and crank out the same wrestlers over and over again with this. Cookie cutter.

They'll recruit from colleges/universities with big time Wrestling programs (Penn State I think is the big one with Cael Sanderson running the program) and then train them the WWE way. Perhaps grab a football player who didn't get drafted too.

You won't be seeing any more high flyers, submission artists, MMA fighters, etc.

Where did you get this from? It doesn’t state this is the only way to get into the WWE. And the IWC tries to collectively whinge about MMA fighters in WWE anyway. But they could still make it in. This just provides a gateway for guys like Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, The Rock, Shelton Benjamin, Chad Gable, Parker Bourdreaux and guys like that. I don’t see how that line-up is cookie cutter. Athletes like that are probably more in-touch with what makes them unique, honestly. If you want cookie cutter, look at the indies and see everyone structure matches with the same beats.

You mean how every indie work does these absurd dives, regardless of their size?

I’ll take one Kurt Angle over the entire indy scene in a heartbeat.

the danger in clockshots scenario isnt the recruitment phase its not having a diverse training staff

the NIL program coupled with 3 separate training facilities with unique motives operandi is a recipe for success

Absolutely. And the current WWE model isn’t the most diverse. But at least if they’re sending training out to people, it at least implies the potential for variance. Unless they send drones out each and every which way.

But the type of athlete they seem to recruit is probably much better suited to picking up the psychology of wrestling, which could at least circumvent some of the problems with the factory line.

I’ve been saying for the longest time that the WWE should focus on domestic training facilities, and should work out something with Kane and Tom Prichard’s school (if it’s still around).

id rather train a complete novice who has rhythm and spatial awareness than to attempt to correct a decade worth of bad habits that have been positively reinforced by a legion of fat slobs and pencil necked geeks on twitter. there's no fixing that.

AND YOU CAN'T TEACH THAT

And we will get folks whose top goal is "Get myself rich" instead of "Get 5 stars from some guy who is needlessly seen as the be-all end-all."

and boy do we ever need guys who are trying to make money instead of guys trying to avoid work

There really does need to be a shift.

Damn. Guy’s actual name is A.J. Ferrari.

I bet they bring him in as Alex Benz or something.

The Blonde Twins will be for sure be favorites of Kevin Dunn and Johnny Ace.

They'da probably picked an Esport person if their last game didn't suck balls

I've been thinking about this all evening. I hate it.

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Because they're really going to produce Rocks, Gillbergs, Angles, Stings, Warriors, etc. out of this? Goodbye Flairs, Dusty, Kevin Steen, Milenkos, Benoits, etc. I stan for the small wrestling schools and the former territories.

My dumbass shouldn't have said Sting and Warrior because they at least went up the ranks. I just don't like the idea...it'd be WWE's mo to just use these raw athletes as their only talent going forward.

how many of them are going to be pro sports or Olympic gold medalists

We're gonna lose fans like KWFRick that think they have an ounce of any chance after their trampoline rasslin to have a career if they don't have an NIL in tennis at some large university.

Maybe I'm just being shitty but after all the layoffs and they'll allow these new bloods to use the facilities. sounds suspicious

I am trying to see the down-side.

The Kids get training in both wrestling and the media side of things, should neither work out.

The WWE gets folks who are coachable, have personality, and lack the bad habits many indy folks have.

If even one of these folks go into WWE and are successful, this is a big win. And, just on looks alone, they have about 4 or 5 of this class who will be success.

and they can still try and grab guys like dante martin or whoever else fits that young and super talented mold and wwe thinks can be coached in their system.

Not sure what this changes really..

What changes is you could have a large influx of people who don't give a shit about wrestling and never wanted to be a wrestler, but are doing it for the money and to get on tv. Possibly to get closer to doing something they actually want to do like television or movies. A whole locker room of sables, in other words. Sure you have the occasional genetic freak like lesnar or Goldberg who are successful despite their lack of interest growing up. But I'd wager most people who enter professional wrestling purely for monetary reasons don't end up lasting very long. See: the entire diva era.

And that's not to say making money shouldn't be a motivation. Making bank has always been very very important in wrestling. But I believe the best wrestlers of all time have that ambition and hunger to be stars and make the big money, while simultaneously having a deep rooted appreciation for the wrestling itself.

All that said, from purely a business perspective, WWE is probably too big at this point for these negatives to hurt them. The product may suffer more, in the eyes of the fans, but wwe has already made it clear that they're fine with that as long as their investors are happy. And I'm sure wwe having more control over how their wrestlers are shaped and molded makes those investors very happy.

I just don’t agree that appreciation isn’t found in the coachable athletes that come from other sports, and that it does lead to a lockerroom of Divas. That’s more if you give the wrestlers’ girlfriends jobs. A lot of the younger athletes have way better habits and can pick up what makes wrestling work — therefore appreciating it.

Ernie Ladd picked up wrestling for the money outside football. Historically, it has been VERY good to wrestling.

It also allows the right kinds of athletes to be influencing wrestling itself, which makes wrestling more appealing to those sorts of athletes. It can change the culture. And the WWE offering this sort of opportunity is good for their PR and helps embed them more as a possibility for athletes who get through college but don’t necessarily see a way to transfer their wrestling or other sporting prowess into a career. Who knows? In a few decades maybe the actual goal will be to go and play college football, if the NFL calls, cool, but if your knee hurts a bit, just go to the WWE and be a wrestler.

I just mean.. they could of (and did) grabbed those people before. They still can (and will) grab independent wrestlers. I guess it’s a change on the business side but changes nothing for the fans. Still the same bullshit no?

Even the most hardcore fans will be seeing less familiar names debut

Yeah of course.

So less interesting in the short term and hoping to build in the long term. I just have no trust in them building any sort of star regardless. I hope they do. I’d love a reason to watch WWE again.

Look, I get it. I absolutely get it. Right now the business needs more Drew McIntyres and fewer Kenny Omegas. And it's possible that some of the people they recruit will genuinely fall in love with what they're doing. But what what they'll be doing is WWE's idea of what wrestling should be. And given their track record, I can't help but feel this will lead to the product becoming even more homogenized than it is now.

I don’t have a big disagreement with you or anything. I’m just choosing to see the net benefits, haha. I don’t think it’s going to lead to what you think it will, because I think the talent signed are probably going to be good enough to put themselves into what they do. The smart ones are probably going to learn on the side too, talk to veterans, etc. They’ll hopefully realize that standing out, at a certain point, is good.

I do wish they would open their training philosophy though. Tom Prichard in Knoxville, Al Snow in OVW, Lance Storm in Canada, The Samoans on the West Coast, Harley Race’s school, etc. Diversification is not a bad thing. They’re the right prospects to do it with though.