Future link it pro#
Future link it professional#

Replenishing it, but we're replenishing it with what we believe to be The last couple of years, that number got below 100. The sweet spot for us long-term is around 150. Coming into this week, we have aġ10 talents in developmental. It will require real work to get these athletes to find their footing in NXT in a relatively short span of time, but even if just a handful take to it quickly, WWE will have a blueprint on its hands that encourages other outsiders to give wrestling a serious shot.ĭo a set of releases and churn out,' Kimball said. In the meantime, WWE would rather appeal to a wider range of athletes and not just the surplus of stars on the indies, which will always be available to choose from. Once there's a need again for more independent wrestlers, they'll be incorporated back into the program. The mindset appears to be that the brand, and the company as a whole, has already relied too heavily on outside talent in the last decade and it's time to balance it out. It's all about evolving the approach to how it recruits talent, and it's constantly going to change depending on what the roster needs. NXT, at least as a television show, isn't as much about the in-ring product nowadays, as it's building toward the future. The quarterly TakeOver specials were heavily praised for their simplicity, technically stellar wrestling and for featuring dream matchups you wouldn't see anywhere else. For the first nine years of its existence, the former black-and-gold brand was best known for bringing in notable names and established stars from other promotions. Homegrown stars such as former SEC track and field star Bianca Belair and Iowa defensive lineman Big E spent a significant amount of time in NXT and went on to achieve major success, but they were the outliers. It's a different strategy compared to what WWE has typically gone for. In fact, weeding out those with that aforementioned wrestling experience was part of the screening process. WWE officials and executives have clearly shifted their focus when scouting for Superstars.

Future link it professional#

The one commonality among all of them was zero prior professional wrestling experience, let alone knowledge of the industry's inner workings or the current product.

Future link it pro#

In other words, independent wrestlers are no longer the target demographic.Ī few failed to go pro in their respective sport while others are currently training for the Olympics in 2024. Not only was the atmosphere much more relaxed in a restaurant-turned-trailing-facility such as Wildhorse Saloon, but the tryouts also exclusively featured former college athletes. As part of the company's new recruitment and development strategy under Levesque and former UFC executive James Kimball, that has changed completely. In years past, the WWE Performance Center would host tryouts for a mix of people who did and did not have wrestling backgrounds. Most notably, there wasn't a single familiar face among the athletes themselves-or at least not anyone the average wrestling fan would recognize. One year later in Nashville, he was back in good spirits and ready to hit the ground running. It was almost exactly one year ago when WWE held a similar-sized tryout in Las Vegas, and within weeks, Triple H was out of commission indefinitely due to a health scare. It was obvious he missed this part of the job during his hiatus. Khan played with his son in between the three rings and routinely checked out what was going on, but Levesque was locked in. WWE head of creative Paul 'Triple H' Levesque and co-CEO Nick Khan were also at ringside observing each crop of competitors.