NXT Wrestlers Reportedly told To Work Stiff – As noted earlier, Randy Orton took major shot at NXT recruits during his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. On today’s Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez reacted to the news and talked about the way the NXT wrestlers are trained.
Orton said, “There’s an art to what we do, and a lot of guys have lost that art. Now instead of selling a punch, because you need to sell a punch, now I’m protecting myself because I don’t want to get my f*cking jaw broken. That’s unfortunate, but the art to professional wrestling, like when Vince was on he talked about your number one priority above all being protecting your opponent, that’s not taught necessarily in NXT, and I know that because I’ve been in the ring with guys that came from NXT and they don’t know what the f*ck they’re doing. It’s unfortunate but I think that is just kind of how things are changing.”
Alvarez said on WOL that he has heard that wrestlers in WWE developmental have been told to lay it in. In other words, they are told to work stiff.
“Randy Orton is absolutely 100 percent correct,” Alvarez said. “That is what this used to be. It used to be that this was a show and you pretended to hurt each other and there was an art to pretending that you hurt each other but not actually hurting each other.”
Alvarez continued, “Bro I don’t know when that changed but I have heard and I am sure that many other people listening to this who might be in the business have heard the same thing – that in developmental, these wrestlers are encouraged to lay it in. They are encouraged to lay it in.”
