Hello fellow Smarks! My wife and I found ourselves wondering about the current state of the WWE/NXT locker room, so we have a question here for those who might have more insider know-how.
Who is the backstage head of the locker room right now? Once upon a time, that was Undertaker’s unquestioned domain, but now that he’s all but retired, who is ruling in his place? Cena? Or someone newer? I somehow can’t imagine it’s Big Show, even though he’s one of the older wrestlers active today.
One thing that got us thing about this is that it appears that “Yeti”, the most recent Tough Enough winner, has put his foot in it. Gretchen saw an article recently where he apparently badmouthed some other wrestlers called the Social Outcasts, calling them “Social Jobbers”, and got immediately slapped down for it by Kevin Owens and Stardust, who decreed that Yeti would have to change his clothes in the hall rather than in the locker room for awhile. So our question here is — is Yeti supposed to go right into WWE, or is he going to do some time in NXT first?
I don’t pay too much attention to that level of backstage stuff – KO is pretty outspoken/confrontational on twitter, but I think it’s all part of his gimmick!
I wouldn’t be surprised if we never saw the Tough Enough winner on TV. Many of the folks who won contracts in previous seasons didn’t work out and quietly left, while others who got cut from the show (Cameron) were later hired anyway.
Cena’s injured, so he’s probably not around. I dunno, the vibe from listening to interviews and such over the past year is that there’s less of the old school pecking order and it’s more of a team vibe in the locker room, but who knows – maybe that’s all a work, too!
I don’t take a lot of things along these lines too seriously. The rumor mill had Daniel Bryan getting released yesterday, and it’s 99% certain it was people intentionally trying to see if they could get a bogus story into the “dirtsheets”. So, who knows? Maybe it’s true? Though it would seem odd to me that a Tough Enough winner would go straight to the main roster these days. But given the rash of injuries, maybe they decided to bump someone up to the main roster who had no NXT investment? I guess my BS senses are tingling a bit but that’s just subjective feeling.
Anyway, when it comes to Yetis and professional wrestling, there’s only one Yet-ay that I think matters: http://www.wrestlecrap.com/icfyt/it-came-from-youtube-here-comes-the-yeti/
I took Stardust’s tweet more as a Threat/Promise that if/when he got called up, he wouldn’t be welcome in the locker room.
To your last question, no, not everyone does time on NXT TV before main roster (at least in gimmick). Case in point, Braun Strowman. That guy blended in as a Rosebud, but was kept from the audience, my guess, because he was always slated to be a main roster surprise guy and they didn’t need to test market him to network viewers.
Regarding a locker room leader, I’ve only ever heard Cena mentioned in that vein.
Though, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Bob Holly being announced as a guest instructor. Or he and Bronson as surprise entrants in the Royal Rumble
Justin Phillips It’s fascinating, because there’s such a bizarre and protean notion of what “respect” meant and means. You’d get vets in some territories who took “respect” to mean “beat the everloving shit out of young guys and take advantage of them in the ring”, and then you’d get other territories where that kind of behavior toward a rookie would result in another vet returning the favor for you. You get stories of “locker room leaders” defusing potentially volatile situations before they explode at their best, but you also get stories of petty, mean-spirited dictatorships like what JBL was alleged to have pulled, particularly on The Miz—who, despite his gimmick, seems to have respected the people in the business even though he came through an odd door to get in. Which seems to be the source of JBL’s alleged animosity, which is absolutely crappy if true, because it’s hardly Miz’s fault if WWE decided to take a flyer on a reality show star. Today, honestly, the business at the WWE level is so professional, I have to imagine a lot of the old ways are withering away.
The stuff I’ve heard about what DeMott allegedly pulled, and it seems very plausible to me, blows my mind. I mean, WWE is a professional work environment. It’s not the carny days any more. Sexual, racial or orientation slurs are not only ethically indefensible, but could absolutely serve as grounds for an embarrassing (and justified) harassment lawsuit. It’s a PR black eye for WWE, which is why I am surprised that kind of culture was allowed to develop. Also, if what I’ve heard about him running unsafe drills, or doing crap like slapping possible concussees in the head or pulling a shirt off Rusev right after he came back from neck surgery is true, that particularly is gross as hell. Your job as head trainer is to help these people achieve their best, and getting someone injured and/or making them continue to drill despite the injury could lead to a permanent injury and retirement before they even get their shot. That’s wasting your bosses’ greatest assets, because you want to pretend like you’re a big man. If I knew one of my employees was potentially breaking my best assets before the even had time to develop, they’d be future endeavored so fast their heads would spin.
All I know is if Harley Race – maybe the toughest non-Meng motherfucker on the planet – thinks you’ve crossed the line from being tough to being abusive, you probably have been.