Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Charlotte Flair are among the wrestlers who trained at WWE Performance Centre.
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The launch of the WWE Performance Centre in Orlando, Florida on July 11, 2013, which was expected to usher in a paradigm shift in the way the WWE nurtured talent, occurred ten years ago today. WWE had previously established its talent development strategy around hiring an independent promotion with a wrestling school, a local TV deal, and a regular schedule of house shows. When the changeover occurred, Steve Keirn’s Florida Championship Wrestling, which was founded particularly to fill that position, was in charge of the developmental programme.
Big E, Asuka, Rhea Ripley, Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Charlotte Flair are among the wrestlers. Given that Belair is the only person on that list who was entirely taught from the beginning by WWE in Orlando, there isn’t much reason to have faith in the Performance Center’s ability to create stars from nothing. Although they were all trained from the start, Big E, Roman Reigns, and Charlotte were in FCW, and two of the three come from wrestling families. In the past, Asuka, Ripley, Owens, and Rollins had all competed in wrestling.
It is generally acknowledged that the Ohio Valley wrestling era of 2000–2002, which produced John Cena, Batista, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, and Shelton Benjamin, was the most productive period for WWE development. There was only limited prior experience, and it belonged to Cena. In summary, it felt like OVW was a perfect training ground for someone who had a talent for pro wrestling. The majority of the knowledge that performers acquire outside the fundamentals comes from working with more seasoned wrestlers on a weekly basis while on the road, thus understanding the trade of pro wrestling goes well beyond what you study in school.
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Although it has a proven track record of turning unsigned players into stars, it must also be forcefully noted that the success rate of unsigned prospects wasn’t ever going to be very high. As a concept, the Performance Centre has always made sense. It’s merely that the implementation seems to be all over the place, and Paul Levesque managing WWE’s daily wrestling operations is the first time we’re seeing a more united vision.
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