Two and a half weeks ago, I spent time at a WWE tryout to see how the company is going all in on a youth movement with college athletes. How WWE is focusing on college athletes differs from the why.

The why is more complicated. It involves a lot of inside-wrestling conversation, and the aforementioned story already was long, so I didn’t include it.

But after the response to the story and numerous comments asking about the change in NXT and competition with All Elite Wrestling (AEW), I figured I should write a bit more from my interview with Paul Levesque, WWE’s Executive Vice President, Global Talent Strategy & Development, known in the wrestling world as Triple H. We spoke for almost 30 minutes after one day of the tryout, and I was grateful for his time. He doesn’t do many interviews like that. I asked him about NXT, AEW and the changes to the WWE developmental system he’s led for a decade. It’s been on the minds of wrestling fans for years. It all just didn’t fit in the original story.

WWE’s move away from signing so many independent wrestlers was polarizing within the wrestling world. Even some people in the company were unsure about it. The move also came during a year in which WWE cut a large number of wrestlers from both NXT and the main roster. But in the seven-ish months since the shift, the company feels good about the change of direction. NXT 2.0 has found its footing; it’s become a solid show, and the ratings have become consistent. More importantly, they believe they’re creating a new and young generation of stars in the pipeline.

Officials were beyond pleased with the potential they found at the tryout, and NIL deals are getting WWE in with top college athletes like Gable Steveson. With Levesque now back to work full-time after a health scare last year, and with his in-ring career officially closed, he’ll be more directly involved with developmental again. He loves the scouting aspect of the business and was invigorated by the tryout.

So why make that talent shift, and what’s the goal? Here’s more from my conversation with Levesque.

Growing the pool of talent

My biggest takeaway from the WWE tryout was that the company is essentially making its own wrestling school. There will be many more new wrestlers in the business because of this, whether they stick in WWE or end up somewhere else. Levesque kept coming back to the idea that the original purpose of the performance center and developmental was to create a path into WWE. The NXT golden era from 2014-19 thrived largely in part because it signed so many independent wrestlers.

“It always bothered me, like, (to get into wrestling in the past) you’ve almost got to be someone with nothing else going on or can’t take no for an answer and dig and dig and dig. But that pool is so small, people trying to get into this business,” Levesque said. “As I met more people, and you become savvy to the world of athletes, you realize the NFL is letting go 500 players a year. … You look at that massive pool of incredible athletes (from all sports). If you take that pool and 10 or 5 percent have big personalities that would be good for your business, you’re talking about a talent pool that’s 1,000 times bigger than right now.”

This doesn’t mean WWE won’t sign established wrestlers — the company just got Cody Rhodes from AEW — but it wants more options, especially younger options. Among more recent NXT alumni, Finn Balor is 40 years old, Damian Priest is 39 and Tommaso Ciampa is 36. The idea of creating wrestlers in their early 20s is the goal. Levesque also knows they’ll probably pass on some who make it big elsewhere, but that’s not a bad thing.

“Are there going to be some we miss where they say they’ll stay in the business, go find somebody else to train them? Yeah. Good for them,” he said. “Probably sooner or later, we’re going to see them and realize we were wrong and should hire them. And at some point, they’ll want to be part of the biggest promotion in the world and come back here.”

Paul Levesque (Triple H) at WrestleMania 38. (Joe Camporeale / USA Today)

The move to NXT 2.0

NXT’s brand change and TV move to Tuesday nights were seen by many as an admission of defeat after going head-to-head with “AEW Dynamite,” and it coincided with this youth movement. It also largely came while Levesque was out of the picture following his health scare. But he defended the move and said the shift was always part of the plan.

“There was this point where it was on the (WWE) Network, had this cult following, and we needed to get on television,” Levesque said. “How do we do that? We need more experience, need to professionalize this a little bit to make the product to where fans want to see that. We got them to that place. The pandemic (messed) it up a little bit because it was right when we went on TV and we had to shift our focus, doing it in front of no people. It completely altered what we were doing. We couldn’t recruit or train talent for almost two years. … But the show stayed. Then we said, OK, let’s reboot it and go back to what we originally were. Some of these people won’t be ready for television, but we’re gonna put them on television, and we believe the audience is invested enough that the numbers might come down, but a core group of them will stay, and now you’re creating fresh stars all the time. That’s where we are now. The numbers have stabilized.

“People like Bron Breakker, he’s been training for a year. Half the women, they’ve been here a year maybe. There’s a lot that’s just so fresh and new. People used to say the constant churn of NXT was a negative. The churn is what’s great about it. The people here now, hopefully a year and a half from now, none of them are even in NXT anymore, and the ones that make it will be on to “Raw” and “SmackDown. That’s the magic. It truly is the developmental league, the college football, Triple-A baseball. Yeah, they’re not all quite ready to be in that major-league role yet, but you’re discovering them before they become household names.”

Levesque added, “We were talking about this shift anyway. That’s where we were headed. It happened at a period of time where I had to leave for a bit. Luckily, Shawn (Michaels) had been doing it with me all that time, so it was a seamless thing. I stepped out, did what I needed to do, but that team has killed it. They’ve really created a show where you can really say that’s the next generation of stars.”

Former NXT stars in AEW

For wrestling fans, it’s not hard to notice that many wrestlers formerly at the top of Levesque’s NXT are now in AEW and other promotions. From Adam Cole and reDRagon (formerly The Undisputed Era) to Keith Lee to Malakai (formerly Aleister) Black to Andrade El Idolo, a lot of the work Levesque put into them in NXT is paying off in AEW. WWE released some of those wrestlers; others left on their own. I asked Levesque what he thought about seeing his former NXT wrestlers there.

“I like all those guys,” he said. “They helped us get where we needed to get, and I’m thankful for it. The truth is there was a period of time where we were trying to build NXT. We built NXT. Then we were trying to build a brand that could get a television show and sustain it. All those names helped us get there. Whether anybody believed or not they fit on “Raw” or “SmackDown,” those aren’t necessarily my decisions solely, and they’re Vince’s (McMahon) decisions and fans’ decisions; and then, can we continue to do business with them?

“If they have great gigs, I’m happy for them. I stay in touch with almost all of them. I like to think they came into us here, we taught them a lot, got them to (a higher level) where they learned how to do television, how to be professionals and all that to be successful there. At some point, they might come back with us, or they might never because they don’t fit our brand as well, but that’s OK. They got us to certain places, and I’m thankful for that, and they’re thankful for that, and they’re off to different things. But that doesn’t stop the train. People leave football teams, move to different teams all the time, and it’s great.”

Competition with AEW

Whether or not WWE views AEW as “competition” is semantics. While the companies no longer battle head-to-head in the same TV slot, there’s some competition in signing wrestlers, selling T-shirts and anything that comes with two companies in the same field. Levesque viewed the idea as a positive for the industry.

“As far as the competition aspect goes, it’s great. It makes everybody sharper,” he said. ”You get lazy if you’re all there is and everybody goes about their business. The end of the day, it’ll make us better, and we’ll all be better for it. All those things have forced us to be in a better place right now. Not that we wouldn’t have gotten there anyway, but we had to do it quicker in some manner. That’s an important piece of it, right?”

Levesque added, “As long as there aren’t things hurting the business overall, I think any of that stuff is good. If you’re a 6-year-old kid, you turn on the TV, wrestling is on and you like it. Now you’re caught up in it. Then you start sampling all of it. You get to where you’re a huge fan. That’s the money. There’s room for everybody to do it. It’s like saying the USFL or XFL is starting up and the NFL is panicking about market share. It’s just going to increase people’s love for football. If you love football that much, you’ll watch all of the football, and it’s great. But the NFL is not sweating that.”

Creating new habits

The most consistent thing I heard from WWE officials at the tryout was the idea of creating wrestling habits. With some independent wrestlers, there would be “bad habits” to break, like footwork or promo work or camera stuff. Young and inexperienced college athletes are easier to mold.

“The tryouts we did before, where there were a lot of athletes and experienced indie guys, I don’t think there’s any less of a ‘That’s a rock star,’” Levesque said. “The indie stuff, half of it is, ‘He’s a good in-ring performer, but the rest is a mystery. He’s got bad habits I have to get him out of.’ This is almost cleaner. It’s a blank slate.”

A larger pool of talent also allows the company to make quicker decisions on futures, like a pro sports team.

“The numbers force us to be more regimented,” Levesque said. “We used to be like, ‘Well, he’s only been here a year, let’s give him more time, see if he picks it up.’ Now we know there’s a six-month coming in the door of adapt, get rolling and then we’re looking at your aptitude for this. We know in that six months — and some won’t make it that long.”

Making new stars

For a period of time from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, many felt WWE had lost its ability to make stars, and some of those who were (CM Punk, Daniel Bryan) were done so reluctantly. But that’s changed in recent years with people like Roman Reigns (post-heel turn), Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and others, many of whom came through NXT. Levesque pointed to “The Tonight Show” as an example of how it’s changed.

“Three years ago, ‘The Tonight Show’ would call and want a guest and ask for Triple H or The Undertaker or (John) Cena. There was a year I couldn’t make it work, and I asked them to pick Roman or Braun (Strowman). They weren’t interested. … Now Roman is on that show on his own. It takes time. You’re building stars. It’s not like flash-in-the-pan stars where this guy’s hot in boxing today and six months later, no one remembers him.

“You’re trying to build generational stars that last. It takes time. It’s a slow and steady progression, and they’re getting there. Becky Lynch, Roman, they’re becoming household names.”

The past year has seen a ton of turnover in WWE. The company has gone all in on this talent shift, and the roster five years from now will look a lot different than it has in the past. AEW, loading up on independent wrestlers, continues to look strong as well. The landscape is changing, and those are two very different talent strategies, but as much as online wrestling fans like to argue with each other about each company, the end result should be a better industry for everyone because of the competition and the options available.

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(Top photo:  Ethan Miller / Getty Images)