Nick Khan: It's Definitely More Difficult To Create Stars In 2022
Finding the next star is difficult, Nick Khan believes
Apr 1, 2022
While the likes of Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley, and Drew McIntyre find themselves at the top of WWE, a common criticism of Vince McMahon's company in recent years has been their inability to create new stars.
WWE President Nick Khan addressed this on The Town podcast and he claimed it is more difficult for the organisation to create the next big star in 2022.
"It's definitely more difficult. Let's look at Logan Paul, who is wrestling a match for us this weekend along with The Miz. If you look at Logan Paul, if YouTube and the social media platforms didn't exist, let's say it's 15 years ago, could he have been the next big WWE Superstar? Sure, but he figured out a way to make a ton of money without having to go do that," Khan began.
"We've made a massive pivot. We came to him. It used to be, you'd get boxers on the downside of their career; Joe Lewis, Muhammad Ali, coming to wrestling. Now you're getting them on the upside; Floyd Mayweather, 15 years ago, Tyson Fury a few years ago. I think the athletes see the benefit of our platform, but in terms of creating new, full-time stars, we've completely shifted our recruiting efforts."
WWE previously focused on signing independent wrestlers but the company has switched to primarily bringing in athletes with little to no professional wrestling experience using tryouts and their NIL programme to discover developmental talents.
H/T to Fightful