Is Going To The WWE Really A Death Sentence?

Oh, look, another one of those opinion article things. I don’t do as many of these things since of course, these are simply just opinions on certain topics where you can feel free to agree or disagree with them and my words shouldn’t be taken as gospel, but they’re still fun to poke around with and get a different insight on things.

The last time I did a WWE opinion article was around WrestleMania season when I asked if everyone should be booked for the show and of course, I said no. I also try to avoid doing WWE because of the fact that almost everyone and their mother covers it, which I can understand, since it’s very accessible and more globally know that every other promotion in the world right now. I know a lot of people are souring on the product and I can see why with certain things but most of them are people being mad about their favorites being pushed and I understand we want the guys we follow to make it to the top, but they handle stuff differently and I’ll get to that later. My question for the day is that is singing with WWE really a death sentence?

Whenever we have a top independent wrestler doing well anywhere on the globe, of course they’re going to have some eyes on them from top promotions such as NJPW, Impact, ROH, and of course WWE. When they go to WWE, they’re usually sent to NXT first with the exception of AJ Styles and Gallows & Anderson, but most are sent to NXT because it’s one of the hottest things going on in WWE right now and they also need to learn how to work the WWE style.

I know what you’re thinking, “They wrestled all over the world for years, what do they need to work on”, the answer is pretty simple.

For the foreign stars they need to work on English, some need to learn how to cut promos since you need more than just wrestling skills to get over, and pretty much just adapting to a different style. They all get groomed at the Performance Center while wrestling in NXT, which is their indie equivalent, at this point due to them being more catered to the hardcore indie fans. Now this is where people start to get paranoid since once they lost a title or need to make room for more NXT stars, they get called up to the main roster aka Raw and SmackDown and things get different for them since this is where we see how they do once they do get called up and some can be a hit or a miss.

“Why are they doing so horrible here when we know they can do great anywhere else?”

Well, you’re right that there’s quite a few that we know can do great, even doing welll in NXT, but don’t quite make it on the main roster. You also get those that do make it like all three members of Shield, Charlotte, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Shinsuke Nakamura, Elias, Asuka, etc and you, of course, get some bad apples like Tye Dillinger, Tyler Breeze, No Way Jose, most tag teams except Revival, and Bobby Roode.

Honestly, it’s just like almost every other company where some are going to make it and some aren’t. Plus some of these companies look at superstars differently, while they made it in some, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll 100% make it everywhere. It really depends on how the crowd reacts to you, the impact you make on your debut, and how well your merchandise sells. If you somehow do fairly positive in almost all of them, then you’re going to get pushed and if you, unfortunately, can’t do those, then it’s hard to make it. If WWE was mostly based on wrestling and talent, then you would see a difference in who gets pushed, but since they haven’t been that way for probably over thirty years, you’re gonna need more than that to get over.

“Why would they wanna go to WWE if they’re just gonna get buried?”

Again, not every single person is going to get buried despite an average track record. People wanna go there for different reasons and the answer isn’t always money since people like Young Bucks, Cody, Aries, and quite a few have proven that you actually can make a lot of money without going to the WWE. Which is good for them in doing so, but it’s also not always the case with money unless there are those that actually don’t make that much and wanna try to get it to help provide for themselves and their family. Which there’s nothing wrong with that, since at the end of the day, you wanna make as much as you can since you never know when you’re career is going to end.

Another reason is that this is something a lot of people grew up watching and it’s their dream to one day be a WWE Superstar and sure some don’t get to go as far as they wanted to, but they could say they at least tried it and they don’t go away empty handed either. How do they not go away empty-handed you ask? Well, it’s simply the fact that you’re gonna walk out with more knowledge since a great wrestler always learns something no matter how many years of experience you have in the ring. You’re always going to learn something no matter how big or small it is and you’re going to take that knowledge with you whether you go back to the indie scene or going overseas. Look at  how Drew McIntyre reinvented himself when he was released by the WWE and came back a few years later.

Do people wanna come back to WWE once they leave? It really depends on the wrestler if they want a better shot at redemption or you can say no and use your experience to explore new things, it’s completely up to the wrestler and nothing wrong with that at all. The final reason for them wanting to go to WWE is that most of them have already conquered the indie and International scene, leaving them feeling pretty accomplished with their career and want to try to go a different route or ‘higher’ level. I say that in quotes since while it’s not the most wrestling sound company anymore, it’s still considered a bigger company at a global and production standpoint, so they wanna try to go that different route to see how far they can actually go there, which again some make it and some, unfortunately, don’t.

So is going to the WWE a death sentence or a career suicide? Not really since while there are some that didn’t make it and left pretty unhappy, you get an equal , if not greater, number with positive things to say. Does creative need to play a bigger part in this? Absolutely, but it is also the superstars job to try and make what they got work to get it over, both creative and the star need to meet in the middle.

Don’t take this article as an all Pro-WWE thing and while I do like them, they have a lot of flaws that I don’t fully agree with, but no company in the world is perfect anyway. Trust me, there are quite a few people that I wanna see make it while following them for so long and it sucks, but you also gotta see it as a business. Don’t just play fantasy booker, since they run a lot more differently than all the other places due to them being a sports entertainment company as opposed to a wrestling one.

If you need a shorter version of what I just said, here’s a tweet by Velveteen Dream to kinda give you the gist of what I’m saying. So what do you think? Is it really a career suicide and I’m just crazy? Is it not that terrible as people making it out to be? Are we meeting in the middle? Agree to disagree? Buy me a drink? Wanna know your thoughts.