At the end of WWE’s open tryouts yesterday in Las Vegas,
WWE’s own Triple H held a media call. Wrestling Inc.’s own Nick Hausman was
invited and asked Triple H if WWE had changed their policy in recruiting
following rumors of WWE overhauling NXT and their developmental system.
According to Triple H, there isn’t a shift because things have never shifted to
begin with.
“It’s a funny thing, people talk about the shifting if
what it is. It never really shifted,” Triple H said. “So if you go back and
look at the hiring process, not the hiring process of a television show, the
hiring process of who we’re looking to train and make WWE Superstars. Long
term. If you go back and look at it, it hasn’t shifted. It’s been the same
process. I don’t negate anybody. From a standpoint of ‘I wrestled some
independent stuff. ”Well all right, you’re out!’ That’s not a factor to me, but
it’s also not the factor that makes me go ‘okay, you’re in.’ When they get in
here today, if somebody goes in and hits the ropes perfectly every time, has
every roll perfect, does all the stuff, (makes) it look easy because they’ve
been training, that’s not really showing me anything. You should be able to, if
you’ve been training, if you’ve been working indies you should be able to do
all of that.
“To me, what is the potential long-term? What is that
potential? And are they willing to do the work to live up to that potential.
Vince used to always say ‘we’re a variety show. We are. In some manner, you
need a little bit of everything. That’s the key to all of this. But people hear
one statement and then make one (assumption). ‘Now it’s that. No, now it’s
this.’ It always has been.”
Later Triple H was asked how many talents WWE signed at
this tryout? While he didn’t have an exact number, he was able to give a pretty
decent estimate.
“I didn’t count,” Triple H joked. “We had thirty eight
talent here today, we had one drop out from yesterday to today. We had an
injury and then we had another, not dropout, but we cut training short today.
And I’d say somewhere, in the ballpark, of thirteen and sixteen I’d say.
There’s a lot passion here in the last couple of days and a lot of drive. And
clearly we’re looking for something different. You’ll hear Vince say it a lot.
It’ll sound wrong to a lot of people, but it’s right. We’re not looking for
professional wrestlers, we’re looking for superstars. We’re looking for
somebody that can break through that. The rest of it takes care of itself.
“You’re looking for the diamond in the rough, you’re looking
for the one in a million, you’re looking for those things. That’s the difficult
part. The rest of it takes care of itself and it happens. And you go about that
process. So to me, right now it’s about giving opportunities. And there was a
lot of people here that have the tools to break through, that stood out when
they walked through the room. You’re like ‘alright, who’s that?’ They had that
some type of it factor, and then proved it to us here how much they wanted it.
And I think, in this moment in time, to be able to go a little bit beyond and
bring in these people give them that shot. Are they going to make it? No. It’s
a long hard journey. But if everybody made it it wouldn’t be that special when
you got there, right?”
Triple H also discussed the so called ‘it’ factor, and if
there was any difference in identifying it between men and women. Triple H
answered the question by focusing on the women aspect.
“People use that term it factor, x factor, charisma. It’s
hard to put your finger on what it is,” Triple H said. “Sometimes I feel like,
for women, there’s this emphasis on ‘oh man she looked like a million bucks
when she walked in here.’ They’re dressed a certain way, make up is a certain
way, hair’s a certain way, doing all those things. It’s important. At the end
of the day though, it’s more personality to me. I don’t care, if somebody
doesn’t have the money and they don’t wear make up? I mean present yourself
well, but you don’t have to have high dollar hair extensions and a bunch of
make up on and do all these other things in high dollar clothes to come in here
and go ‘oh yeah, they’ve got it.’ To me it almost has nothing to do with it.
“It’s personality, it’s how they engage with you, it’s
how they connect with you. Do they make you feel something when you them when
they’re working? What’s that connection point that you have with these people?
Do you feel something from them? Do they engage you in some manner? Some people
you don’t see that when they’re here. Sometimes the red light goes on and they
got it ‘boom.’ I’m sure you’ve heard people say ‘the camera loves them.’ Yeah
they take great pictures. I’ve seen that a lot too. When you get to a tryout
you’re like ‘this person looks great.’ Then they get there and you’re like
‘when do they get in?’ It’s not the same person. In person it doesn’t resonate.
On camera it does. There’s factors that but it’s not an image thing. That’ll
fade. I feel like that’s part of the process of the two day journey or the
three day journey or the four day journey, depending on the tryout style that
we’re doing.”
Triple H continued, emphasizing again how appearances can
only take someone so far. Ultimately he concluded that there’s differences for
every individual talent involved, regardless of whether they are male or
female.
“Yes somebody walks in the room, those things might catch
your eye for a minute,” Triple H said. “And then very quickly, that persons not
really doing anything else, and this person is. And they don’t have any makeup
on, they don’t have their hair done. So it’s never those other things. You can
look past those. What’s really in here, that’s what it factor, charisma, all
those things. Part of that is a passion and a connection to the person, and if
you feel that, that person has charisma, that person has an it factor. It’s
funny because I look at these tryouts sometimes totally differently. I find
myself, catching myself, looking back at the same person in the first half of
the first day.
“I find myself constantly looking back at that same
person for some reason, or the same ten, fifteen whatever people. Like
constantly find myself, catching myself interested in what they’re doing. And
if I mentally see that, I put a check there. I check that person out ten times,
I keep seeing that person do this. They might be terrible. But I keep going
back to it. There’s a reason, they’re drawing my eye for whatever reason. I
don’t have to figure that out, I don’t have to tell you what that reason is, I
just have to know that it’s there. So I don’t know, I just look at it a little
differently. But that’s a factor. Is it different for men and women? It’s
different for every single person. It doesn’t matter, man, woman, it doesn’t
matter. It’s different for everybody. You just got to open to it.”
credit: Wrestling Inc.
