Casting The Perfect Performance Center Coaches
The WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida is a one-of-a-kind training center. An almost futuristic setup where everything that happens can be viewed all the way in Stamford, Connecticut, the location of WWE’s head offices. Different rings have been assembled to assist in training in certain styles as well as a state of the art gym, the WWE Performance Center is truly a marvel to behold. But more important than the physical training side are the classes that are held to assist the new talent in mastering the other traits that make a good professional wrestler. When it was first unveiled, talent would be taught promo abilities by the late, great American Dream Dusty Rhodes. This has been widely discussed by many of the original NXT class as having a profound impact on them and their careers. Over the years WWE has brought in many ‘guest coaches’ who work with the talent on the different aspects of their career to help make them the “Superstars” that they could potentially be. Today, we look at who would be some of the best options regarding different teachings of the craft of professional wrestling.
A caveat before we begin: All the potential teachers must currently be alive, otherwise this list would be much longer and different in some respects.
Storytelling
Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart
This one is a no-brainer. There is simply no better performer in the world that could tell a story bell-to-bell. The knowledge that Hart could impart upon newcomers in terms of making every little thing they do in a match make sense and matter to the story. Look back at his matches with his brother Owen Hart at both WrestleMania X and SummerSlam 1994 for great examples of this. Or if you are a younger fan and prefer something more modern, I implore you to watch his series of matches with Stone Cold Steve Austin at Survivor Series 1996, my personal favorite match ever at WrestleMania 13 and even the oft-forgotten and underappreciated match at In Your House: Revenge Of The Taker. There are very few matches in his career that do not tell a great story and any young wrestler would be lucky to sit under his learning tree. This is something that is an actual possibility, but given the tumultuous back and forth relationship between Hart and the WWE it’s hard to say if this could ever become a reality.
Psychology
Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts
In terms of both in-ring psychology as well as the art of tying it into promo abilities, there may be no one better than Jake Roberts to teach up and comers. We all know that Jake has had a troubled past, but one thing that everyone always notes about him is how he has one of the best minds for the business. After all, this is a guy who actually made a blindfold match work! Granted he had a great opponent in Rick Martel at WrestleMania VII. The chances of this are rather slim currently as Jake is reinventing his career in AEW as a manager for Lance Archer, but could eventually happen down the line.
Promos
Paul Heyman
Now this one is baffling in that it is not happening right now. We all know that the aforementioned Dusty Rhodes worked with many talents to help hone their character and how to parlay that into great promos and character work. Now, with the genius of Paul Heyman, a man who openly considers sitting under the learning tree of Dusty himself is employed by WWE. On top of that, Heyman has been open about his love of working with young talent and helping to develop them. His recent tenure as the Executive Director of RAW saw a lot of younger talent being pushed to the forefront who have unfortunately been pushed back down the card after his removal from the position. Heyman has been doing phenomenal work in helping establish the new heel persona of Roman Reigns on SmackDown but his experience and talent could be so much better utilized in the Performance Center. Simply put, Paul Heyman is the greatest stickman in wrestling, with arguably Eddie Kingston being the only one even in the same stratosphere. This one is easily the most possible of all these options but the higher-ups in WWE for some godforsaken reason don’t see the need to do so.
The Art Of Selling
Ricky Morton
Oh come on, as soon as you saw the header only one name came to mind. While in the past a talent such as Curt Hennig and maybe even his spiritual successor Dolph Ziggler could slide into this role, there is no talent in the history of professional wrestling who understood and represented the art of selling than Ricky Morton. One half of the legendary Rock & Roll Express, (still the second best Express tag team in wrestling history in my eyes, as I will always be a mark for the Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane version of The Midnight Express) there was actually a time when Morton was considered so good at what he did and he was so over that he was slotted for a title run against Ric Flair in the 80s, but turned it down out of loyalty to his partner Robert Gibson. We would see Morton go solo in the early 90s after Gibson suffered an injury, but his time in the limelight had subsided. That said, Morton would constantly be put in a position to get his opponent over due to his innate ability to take a beating and make the crowd care. Obviously in today’s world of wrestling in a pandemic the crowd connection is much different but there is still no one better than Morton to teach that connection. As for the possibility of this happening, Morton is closely aligned with AEW thanks to his relationship with Cody Rhodes (who I would argue is one of the few talents in the world who can make a crowd care like Morton did) but he is also a member of the WWE Hall Of Fame so anything is possible.
That’s all for now, but feel free to reach out to us via social media about other potential classes you would like to see covered and ideas of who you think would fit in well teaching in the Performance Center. You can follow The Signature Spot on Facebook, follow The Signature Spot on Twitter, follow Chris on Twitter and follow me on Twitter where we are more than happy to discuss professional wrestling and more with all of you!
