Luke Gallows has watched WWE change its mind about what a wrestler should look like more times than he can count—and he says one of those hiring strategies created an entire crop of talent that couldn’t wrestle.
The Good Brothers spoke about WWE’s constantly changing recruitment system on TMZ’s Inside the Ring after the conversation turned to major names leaving the company and the wrestling business entering another period of change.
Gallows entered WWE developmental as an extremely inexperienced prospect. Not long after he arrived, the company adopted strict rules about the age and physical size of the people it wanted to recruit.
“You watch the recruiting process change so much over the years. I remember when I first came in, I was the greenest guy in developmental. Shortly after I got there, they didn’t want anybody under 6-foot-2 or over 25 years old.”
The plan was simple: find young, large athletes and teach them how to become professional wrestlers. According to Gallows, the results weren’t pretty.
“The problem with that is it created a crop of bad wrestlers. You know what I’m saying? They ended up being developmental guys and then out of the business.”
Gallows wasn’t saying every young athlete WWE hired was doomed. His issue was with the company shutting out experienced wrestlers because they didn’t match a rigid height or age requirement. Once WWE realized many of those recruits couldn’t perform at the level the company needed, management swung in the opposite direction and started looking for established independent wrestlers.
“Then a couple of years go by and they go, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to go hire some independent wrestlers,’ which, for a few years, was a bad word to say. An independent wrestler was a bad term.”
That philosophy didn’t last either. Gallows said Vince McMahon eventually became concerned that the independent wrestlers WWE brought in weren’t physically big enough. That sent the company back toward bodybuilders and former football players.
“Then they bring in these independent wrestlers. Well, then Vince says the guys aren’t big enough anymore. So, a few years after that, we’ve got to go find some bodybuilders and some college football players.”
Once WWE filled developmental with another collection of inexperienced athletes, the same problem returned: the company needed actual wrestlers who could work with them.
“You watch the cycle. Then three years later, they go, ‘Well, fuck, these guys can’t work. We need somebody to come in and work with them. We’d better go hire some wrestlers.’ It continuously changes.”
WWE has gone through versions of this cycle for years. One regime wants massive athletes with no wrestling background. The next wants independent standouts who can immediately deliver matches. Then management decides the roster isn’t big enough and starts the entire process over again.
Gallows lived through those changes firsthand, and he didn’t sugarcoat what happened when WWE cared more about measurements and birth dates than whether someone could actually wrestle.
Do you agree with Luke Gallows that WWE’s old height and age requirements created too many bad wrestlers, or was the company right to gamble on young athletes? Leave your feedback in the comments.
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