Shawn Michaels: WWE recruiting college athletes has made ‘night and day difference’

Recruiting more college athletes into NXT has significantly improved WWE’s developmental program, Shawn Michaels believes.

The past few years have seen WWE focus more on bringing college athletes into NXT and the Performance Center. In accordance to that, the company has held athlete-specific tryouts and launched its Next In Line program — where athletes can partner with WWE while still in college and create a potential pathway to signing with NXT later.

Michaels, who oversees NXT in his WWE executive role, told the Dallas Morning News that the recruiting strategy has made a “night and day difference” in WWE developmental. He says the college athletes he’s worked with have been able to adapt to pro wrestling quickly.

“When the WWE started recruiting from that incredibly huge pool of athletes, it’s just been, to me, a night and day difference in our developmental program here in Florida,” Michaels said.

“They are already athletes that are 100 percent laser focused on achieving goals. They’re already in phenomenal shape. They’re already disciplined in so many different ways. So they come in kind of built-in, ready to go, and they just are so focused on learning and achieving whatever it is you put in front of them, that as we began to train them in professional wrestling, they just take to it like ducks to water.”

Since its introduction in 2021, former NXT Champion Oba Femi has been the biggest NIL program success. He was a shot putter at the University of Alabama and was signed to the first-ever WWE NIL class.