Josh Barnett

USA TODAY Sports

Where does WWE find talent? Just about everywhere.

What does talent look like? Just about everything.

That makes the journey from dreamer to prospect to superstar more well defined but also more difficult as the company expands its global recruiting efforts and its development tract with the WWE Performance Center in Orlando and NXT, the company's third brand focused on building talent.

“As we grow and as we have the opportunity to reach more and more people and word is getting out there — and I talk a lot about this in our world of recruiting — what are the pathways?” said Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE’s executive vice president for talent, live events and creative. “If you are a kid living in a foreign country and WWE has always been a pipe dream, what’s that pathway you can take to get to WWE?

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“As those pathways became clearer and clearer, the pool gets bigger and bigger and bigger and so the bar goes up in terms of what we’re looking at not only athletically but personality-wise and the right human being.”

Take, for example, a four-day tryout camp last week in Dubai. The camp featured about 40 performers from 20 countries in the Middle East and India.

“We really go into places where we feel we can have the most bang for the buck as far as when we’re looking at doing a recruiting trip or tryout when we’re on the ground in a location and bringing in people from areas,” Levesque said. “(In Dubai), because of the location, because of the population there and the popularity of what we do, we can bring people in from all over and be very selective about bringing in the best of the best.

“We end up with a lot of people from a lot of places, and that allows us to really pick the cream of the crop.”

A fertile planet

Where once WWE rarely recruited outside the United States and got a reputation for only wanting a certain look, Levesque has changed both parts of that equation. There are 74 people training at the Performance Center, with 44% international from 15 countries. About 25% of the overall talent are women.

WWE says it holds four or five tryouts annually at the Performance Center with 40 to 50 recruits per tryout and then hosts another two or three events for athletes who can fill specific needs, such as NFL players, Olympians, big guys or women. Overall the company hosts approximately 300 recruits per year in Orlando. WWE held tryouts in Delhi, Shanghai, Glasgow, Perth and Osaka, Japan, in 2016.

Among additions to the group within the past four months are seven recruits from China who were signed to a developmental contract after a four-day tryout last June in Shanghai. They include an actor from the Shanghai Theater Company, a 6-8 former amateur boxer, a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and the first woman WWE has signed from China. They joined WWE’s first recruit from China, Bin Wang, who made his WrestleMania debut in April in the Andre The Giant Battle Royale.

That diversity of experience extends to WWE’s U.S.-based recruits as well.

Among the new class who arrived at the Performance Center in October are a former Army Ranger with a background in rugby and kickboxing, a National Collegiate Wrestling Association All-American, an NFL running back, a judo black belt from Brazil who participated in her country’s Olympic trials and a number of independent wrestlers from around the world. That included performers who have already debuted in NXT under the names Aleister Black, Killian Dain and Roderick Strong, who kept his name from the independent wrestling ranks.

With a 32-woman tournament scheduled for this summer on WWE Network, the company signed four women to developmental contracts, including Dori Prange, who was known at Heidi Lovelace on the independents and now works as Ruby Riot. She made her NXT TakeOver debut during WrestleMania weekend.

What makes WWE’s recruiting efforts different from other sports is they aren’t limited to a specific set of athletes. NBA scouts, for example, travel the world looking for basketball players. But you don’t necessarily have to have in-ring experience to catch WWE’s attention.

“It makes for a bigger pool,” Levesque said. “But you almost have to take a step back and pull yourself out of the weeds. There is an automatic assumption sometimes, this guy was an MMA guy or this guy was this and this girl was that, so they are a perfect fit for us. Well, that doesn’t mean anything.

“The biggest thing for us is charisma and personality. Sometimes the guy or the girl that is not always the greatest athlete is the one who makes it. You don’t want to limit yourself. I try to take a different approach.

“For example, say this guy has a look or this girl has something about her. On paper, maybe they seem decent, but there’s something about her when you watch the video or something about him when you just hear him talking in the interview process where you say, ‘This guy’s fascinating,’ whether he played ping pong or whatever as long as they are athletic enough to handle what we do.”

Expansion possible

Once signed, WWE brings the talent to the 27,000-square foot Performance Center, which this spring is near capacity. Levesque says the company is “navigating it well” in terms of handling the number of performers coming through. As NXT continues to add dates to its touring schedule, more spots will open. Levesque says once a performer is at a certain point, “getting reps” in front of a live audience is the best education.

The possibility exists for the center to expand to more land adjacent to the current location or potentially have satellite campuses, assuming Levesque feels WWE can replicate the experience from Orlando.

“We’re weighing out the options before we make a definitive step,” Levesque said. “Moreso than the space is the people to execute it. It’s not like you can go get a trainer for being a WWE superstar in the want-ads. You have to work at it and cultivate that side, too.”

What the Performance Center offers once recruits are signed might best be summed up by a former NXT star who has since been released by the company:

“It is like any education program,” said Seth Lesser, who wrestled in WWE as Simon Gotch. “You can get as much out of it as you want to put in, because everything is available right there.”