Nick Khan Discusses WWE’s Current Approach To Recruiting

Speaking to The Town, WWE President Nick Khan discussed WWE's new recruiting efforts.

The company is said to be focused on hiring traditional athletes over "indie wrestlers," and has restructured NXT to reflect that. With that in mind, Khan admitted creating a new generation of stars is not as easy as it used to be.

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"I think it's definitely more difficult. I think if you look at a, let's say Logan Paul, if YouTube and all the social media platforms did not exist, could he have been the next big WWE superstar? Sure," Khan said. "He figured out a way to go make a ton of money without having to do that. We have made a massive pivot. We came to him.

"It used to be you get boxers on the downside of their career, Joe Lewis and 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 athletes see the benefit of our platform, but in terms of creating new full-time stars, we've completely shifted our recruiting efforts."

Those recruiting efforts exemplify the athlete-centered mentality that has been reported for months.

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"If you're a football player and you're not going to make it to the NFL or the XFL and you're just a step short, a step not big enough, come to us. Let's make it easy for you," Nick Khan said. "If you look at a shot-putter in college, what's that man or woman going to do next? Are they going to get an office job? Are they going to go into pharmaceutical sales? Are they going to go work at UPS, or are they going to come take a look at us? We want to make it easy for all of these athletes, and that's not limited to just Division I or NCAA."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit The Town with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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