Nikki and Brie Bella were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame earlier this year as part of the delayed 2020 class, with Nikki Bella retiring as the longest reigning WWE Diva’s Champion of all-time.
Naturally, when WWE announced it’s recent inaugural class of ‘Next In Line’ athletic prospects, fans’ eyes were immediately drawn to two names, Haley and Hanna Cavinder.
With the Cavinder Twins now entering the WWE system, comparisons to WWE’s last pair of twin female wrestlers arose. Dave Meltzer noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the success of Nikki and Brie was one of the factors that led to WWE approaching Haley and Hanna, as well as their impressive athletic background.
“For example, the Cavinder twins, 20-year-old Haley and Hanna, by virtue of being star players at Fresno State and having large Tik Tok and Instagram followings. The identical twins and having done media and endorsements based on that, come in with some name value.
According to the local newspaper, the twins caught WWE’s attention by being the first in another NIL. The sisters were the first college athletes to sign a Name, Image and Likeness deal this past summer. It allows them to be paid to market products and services.
The two appeared on HBO Real Sports pitching products, and already have an endorsement deal with Boost Mobile, were just on CNBC this past week and have been profiled by ESPN. Their joint Tik Tok account has 3.8 million followers and each sister’s instagram account has in excess of 338,000 followers.
Both were being looked at as recruits by WWE prior to the NIL program with the idea of the success of the Bella Twins. They are currently juniors at the school. Both are 5-foot-6 and you can see that looks are part of it, but they are real top tier athletes.
Haley was last season’s Mountain West player of the year and averaged 20.6 points per game as a sophomore in league play, the sixth highest in the history of the conference and was all-conference as a freshman.
Hanna, also a starting guard, averaged 17 points per game last season and was All-Mountain West both her freshman and sophomore year.
They claim to have companies calling them daily and ESPN estimated that both could earn $250,000 each this year through endorsements, noting that the key is not how many points they put on the board this season but companies being impressed by their looks and Tik Tok numbers.”
The Cavinder Twins’ name value will see them earning ‘low triple figures’ from the NIL program, as the details on the contracts of WWE’s newest prospects was also revealed in the Observer.
