Seth Rollins, a veteran of the WWE locker room who came up during an era of a significantly more demanding live event schedule, is worried about how the reduction in WWE house shows will affect the development of future generations of Superstars.
Rollins, a member of the last generation to regularly work multiple weekly live events, believes this shift could hinder the ability of up-and-coming talent to hone their craft.
During his appearance on Outta Pocket with RGIII, Rollins addressed the growing trend of WWE recruiting college athletes through NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals and how they don’t have enough experience in the ring.
“My biggest concern, and I’ll try not to expound on this too much, but my biggest concern is the generation that is being groomed now, we are dipping our toe heavily into the NIL world,” Rollins said. “Taking a lot of college athletes who, maybe after college, there is no future for them as far as money in sports, so we offer them deals to get paid while they are in college to come and maybe be part of WWE when they are older.
There is nothing wrong with training these people from scratch, I have no problem with that, but couple that with our live event schedule. We used to do them every weekend, sometimes two shows every day on Saturdays and Sundays, there would be two running simultaneously in different towns. That’s where I learned my craft and the art of wrestling and storytelling.
“If you don’t get the repetitions to learn that, I don’t care what kind of athlete you are or how impressive your vertical leap is or how many times you can bench press 400 pounds, it’s not going to translate because you don’t know how to tell stories,” Rollins added. “You might be a hell of a performer, but ‘I need a promo. Go out there, five minutes, get it done.’”
Rollins noted the irreplaceable value of live event experience in learning the process of wrestling. He highlighted that there is no replacement for going out and working in front of fans due to the feedback that they get.
“That’s my biggest concern for our next generation,” Rollins said. “You’re plucking from a world where these guys don’t really follow wrestling or may not be fans, and then they’re not getting the experience on top of it to learn how to be part of what we do and how to tell those stories. I do have a concern that over a few generations, that might be harmful to the future of the industry.”
