Matthew Schroeder‘s (@mat_matician) help in collecting this data and guidance in analyzing it was essential to this project, which required scanning the entire cagematch.net database.

The data referenced here is up to date as of mid-October 2020.

What follows will not be an exhaustive analysis. The amount of data related to this project is vast. Many more articles could be written on this subject, referencing this data. At best, this is an introduction.

The purpose of this analysis is broad. But among our issues of interest was in learning about what the output of WWE’s developmental system has been, in recent years, and going back to as early as the year 2000.

I might at another time, but I will not try to make opinionated conclusions about the output or cost-effectiveness of WWE’s current or previous developmental systems here. I admit I have intuitions about the system (possibly biased by my personal experience as an independent wrestler) that were not much swayed either way by examining this data. If anything, my view has become more complicated. The phenomenon of NXT arguably morphing into something beyond a developmental system further complicates the issue. While we may measure match counts, match types, and time in interesting ways in attempt to shed light on this topic, nonetheless, qualities like “success” and “talent” remain elusive in their subjectivity with regard to pro wrestling, largely due to the predetermined nature of matches. Most importantly, opportunities for wrestlers and the results of their matches are ultimately left to the judgment of WWE’s key decision-makers, CEO Vince McMahon chief among them.

The Performance Center era

The information in this article will focus first on the period since the WWE Performance Center was opened in Orlando, Florida, in July 2013. The opening of the facility marked the moment World Wrestling Entertainment took its talent development in-house, after many years outsourcing developmental to various regional wrestling promotions (e.g., Ohio Valley Wrestling, Florida Championship Wrestling, etc.)

Of particular interest to us was the issue of sorting out which wrestlers, among those who have worked extensively on WWE’s main roster:

• a) had most of their previous match experience in companies not affiliated with WWE or its developmental system (referred to throughout as “non-universe”)
• b) had most or all of their previous match experience within WWE’s developmental system, or
• c) somewhere in between.

We should keep in mind when it comes to the “non-universe” match data, cagematch.net does not have a complete record of all matches that have occurred. Certainly many matches wrestlers have had with lesser known promotions are unaccounted for. However, we believe cagematch.net has the most completed record available for this type of research.

Since we are initially focused on the output of WWE developmental following the opening of the Performance Center in July 2013 (and since many wrestlers who were among the first to train at the Performance Center were participating in WWE-affiliated developmental with Florida Championship Wrestling in the time immediately previous to July 2013), January 1, 2014 seems as good a time as any to start the clock on the analysis.

You will notice throughout we are using a wrestler’s 10th WWE main roster (MR) match as an arbitrary qualifier for assuming a wrestler has worked extensively on the main roster. This is not a perfect qualifier, but we struggled to find one that would be as effective without getting convoluted. Dark matches were ruled out of this criterion.

As of the timing of the data collection (mid-October 2020), 128 wrestlers have had their 10th WWE main roster match after or on January 1, 2014.

The table for those 128 wrestlers, with various other data points in additional columns is below. They are sorted in chronological order, beginning with the wrestler who had their 10th MR main the earliest.

A few notes for reading the table:

• The numbers you see in parenthesis next to each wrestler’s name is simply a unique identification number associated with each wrestler in the cagematch.net database.
• The name listed for a given wrestler in some cases may not be the name the wrestler is best known by. In many cases, a name used early in the wrestler’s career may be shown. Rest assured, though, due to our reliance on unique ID numbers for wrestlers, matches for an individual wrestler who used many names are counted to the individual wrestler and their associated ID number.
• “A TV” refers to WWE main roster programs Raw and Smackdown
• “B TV” refers to WWE programs 205 Live, Main Event, and possibly others.

You may click on any of the table images to enlarge view

Note the column “Non-universe development” (on the far right, in orange) attempts to measure the percentage of non-WWE matches a wrestler had before that wrestler had their 10th main roster match.

So for example, someone like Finn Balor (listed in the table as “Prince Devitt” has very high percentage (96%). He wrestled many matches before coming to WWE and working in NXT. For an opposite example, Baron Corbin was signed by WWE and went into developmental without ever having had previous wrestling experience. His result in this column is 0%.

Again, this is where the incompleteness of the cagematch.net database may be misleading. The most controversial example may be that Becky Lynch (who I would venture to guess most people would not think of as “pure Performance Center” developmental talent) has a value of 38% in this category, likely due to the lack of a complete record on cagematch.net of her pre-WWE independent wrestling matches.

Of those 128 wrestlers, there are 20 wrestlers who came to WWE with no prior wrestling experience. Those wrestlers are filtered in the following table:

A more historical analysis: Ohio Valley Wrestling, Heartland Wrestling Association, Deep South Wrestling, Florida Championship Wrestling, NXT

Let’s take a longer view of WWE developmental history. We looked at what percentage of talent in a given year that had their 10th main roster match had the majority of their previous experience outside of WWE’s system (“non-universe”) or majority within the WWE system. Again, this data may be incomplete due to the incompleteness of non-WWE records in the cagematch.net database.

I understand readers may want to know which developmental system was the best, the most effective at putting out talent wrestling stars. It’s a difficult question to answer without gathering better data about how many wrestlers signed to developmental and main roster contracts throughout the relevant period of time. Otherwise the denominator to weigh the results against isn’t clear.

In this very long table, we instead look all the wrestlers who had at least 100 main roster matches since 2000 (217 wrestlers) and this is what the table looks like, sorted by highest MR match counts:

Name	Total WWE main roster matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Randy Orton	2091	4%	2%	16%	0%	0%	2%
John Cena	2000	17%	4%	65%	0%	0%	2%
Kofi Kingston	1908	23%	0%	8%	21%	38%	10%
The Miz	1801	18%	0%	42%	26%	4%	11%
Dolph Ziggler	1779	0%	0%	44%	0%	52%	4%
Sheamus	1574	52%	0%	0%	0%	47%	2%
Cody Rhodes	1410	0%	0%	87%	0%	1%	12%
R-Truth	1338	50%	0%	0%	0%	6%	44%
Natalya	1291	66%	0%	2%	3%	16%	12%
Cesaro	1288	93%	0%	0%	0%	3%	4%
Jack Swagger	1287	0%	0%	40%	2%	57%	1%
Rey Mysterio	1248	99%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Zack Ryder	1238	17%	0%	26%	20%	1%	37%
Shelton Benjamin	1195	1%	0%	49%	0%	0%	0%
Seth Rollins	1134	79%	0%	0%	0%	16%	5%
Jimmy Uso	1124	6%	0%	0%	0%	58%	36%
CM Punk	1104	87%	0%	13%	0%	0%	0%
Jey Uso	1077	7%	0%	0%	0%	48%	45%
Roman Reigns	1054	0%	0%	0%	0%	80%	20%
Primo	1053	90%	0%	0%	0%	8%	1%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Dean Ambrose	1016	92%	0%	0%	0%	6%	2%
Chavo Guerrero	1012	99%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%
Curtis Axel	1007	9%	0%	0%	0%	69%	22%
Heath Slater	995	5%	0%	0%	13%	69%	13%
John Morrison	988	8%	0%	86%	0%	2%	5%
Big E	968	0%	0%	0%	0%	74%	26%
Chris Benoit	962	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Daniel Bryan	951	97%	0%	0%	0%	1%	3%
Titus O’Neil	928	0%	0%	0%	0%	56%	44%
Batista	899	13%	3%	42%	0%	0%	0%
Drew McIntyre	897	45%	0%	4%	0%	26%	25%
Alicia Fox	875	0%	0%	29%	0%	51%	20%
Alberto Del Rio	847	96%	0%	0%	0%	4%	0%
Santino Marella	808	7%	0%	87%	0%	4%	2%
Rusev	783	4%	0%	0%	0%	18%	78%
Bray Wyatt	779	0%	0%	0%	0%	79%	21%
The Hurricane	771	99%	0%	1%	0%	0%	0%
Booker T	765	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Fandango	762	24%	0%	0%	2%	53%	20%
Jinder Mahal	740	67%	0%	0%	0%	25%	8%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Sin Cara	736	37%	0%	0%	0%	41%	22%
Wade Barrett	723	19%	0%	16%	0%	52%	13%
Naomi	713	0%	0%	0%	0%	86%	14%
Ryback	707	6%	0%	28%	18%	39%	10%
Luke Harper	704	87%	0%	0%	0%	1%	12%
Charlotte Flair	695	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Epico	679	72%	0%	0%	0%	26%	2%
Bo Dallas	673	0%	0%	0%	0%	62%	38%
Brian Kendrick	669	84%	12%	0%	0%	0%	4%
Carlito	665	84%	0%	14%	0%	0%	2%
Damien Sandow	664	15%	0%	56%	0%	27%	3%
Tyson Kidd	660	61%	0%	0%	1%	21%	17%
Eddie Guerrero	657	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Kevin Steen	653	95%	0%	0%	0%	0%	5%
Luke Gallows	652	31%	0%	17%	45%	5%	3%
Erick Rowan	646	57%	0%	0%	0%	12%	31%
MVP	642	71%	0%	1%	23%	1%	4%
Mickie James	640	67%	0%	30%	0%	1%	2%
Becky Lynch	634	37%	0%	0%	0%	0%	63%
Baron Corbin	631	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
The Great Khali	630	87%	0%	0%	8%	0%	5%
Sasha Banks	619	22%	0%	0%	0%	0%	78%
Charlie Haas	619	52%	34%	14%	0%	0%	0%
AJ Styles	610	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Victoria	601	28%	16%	48%	0%	0%	0%
Beth Phoenix	592	44%	0%	54%	0%	2%	0%
Curt Hawkins	587	15%	0%	23%	19%	29%	14%
Ted DiBiase	584	57%	0%	0%	0%	31%	11%
Jamie Noble	582	60%	35%	2%	1%	2%	0%
Braun Strowman	575	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Nikki Bella	562	0%	0%	0%	0%	85%	15%
Fit Finlay	548	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Chris Masters	548	20%	0%	66%	0%	0%	14%
Darren Young	546	76%	0%	0%	0%	9%	15%
Layla	541	13%	0%	0%	0%	38%	50%
Brie Bella	537	0%	0%	0%	0%	88%	13%
Chuck Palumbo	533	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Tamina	524	13%	0%	0%	0%	40%	47%
Kalisto	523	68%	0%	0%	0%	0%	32%
Trish Stratus	522	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Lance Cade	514	19%	56%	24%	0%	1%	0%
Spike Dudley	512	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Bayley	508	16%	0%	0%	0%	0%	84%
Viktor	501	64%	0%	1%	0%	8%	27%
El Generico	497	83%	0%	0%	0%	0%	17%
Bobby Lashley	490	0%	0%	97%	3%	0%	0%
Konnor	488	4%	0%	0%	19%	15%	61%
Tyler Breeze	487	18%	0%	0%	0%	11%	72%
Karl Anderson	482	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Xavier Woods	480	63%	0%	0%	0%	22%	16%
Justin Gabriel	473	27%	0%	0%	0%	48%	25%
Paul London	471	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Apollo Crews	440	76%	0%	0%	0%	0%	24%
Matt Sydal	432	93%	0%	5%	0%	2%	0%
PAC	430	82%	0%	0%	0%	0%	18%
JTG	424	0%	0%	49%	0%	0%	51%
Umaga	418	65%	35%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Alexa Bliss	416	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Shinsuke Nakamura	408	92%	0%	0%	0%	0%	8%
Chad Gable	407	12%	0%	0%	0%	0%	88%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Lance Storm	404	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Snitsky	403	88%	0%	12%	0%	0%	0%
Prince Devitt	403	79%	0%	0%	0%	0%	21%
Kelly Kelly	401	0%	0%	40%	0%	10%	50%
Carmella	398	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Melina	391	53%	0%	33%	0%	13%	0%
Vladimir Kozlov	386	0%	0%	75%	15%	2%	8%
Eve Torres	383	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%	0%
Mojo Rawley	379	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Brodus Clay	375	0%	0%	0%	10%	72%	19%
Brock Lesnar	361	0%	0%	10%	0%	0%	0%
Jimmy Wang Yang	360	91%	9%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Michelle McCool	348	0%	0%	0%	67%	0%	33%
Trevor Murdoch	343	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Rene Dupree	340	50%	5%	42%	1%	1%	0%
Kana	340	81%	0%	0%	0%	0%	19%
Sylvain Grenier	335	50%	0%	50%	0%	0%	0%
Alex Riley	329	0%	0%	0%	0%	70%	30%
Lita	324	82%	9%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Paige	319	70%	0%	0%	0%	6%	24%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Ezekiel Jackson	316	4%	0%	0%	0%	92%	4%
Samoa Joe	315	87%	0%	0%	0%	0%	13%
Aiden English	313	1%	0%	0%	0%	4%	94%
Nia Jax	312	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Dash Wilder	312	43%	0%	0%	0%	0%	57%
Maven	311	0%	88%	13%	0%	0%	0%
Davey Boy Smith Jr.	310	72%	0%	4%	0%	24%	0%
Rosey	309	71%	28%	1%	0%	0%	0%
Maryse	308	0%	0%	68%	0%	21%	11%
Bobby Roode	307	44%	1%	0%	0%	0%	55%
Shannon Moore	306	75%	25%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Orlando Jordan	302	50%	0%	50%	0%	0%	0%
AJ Lee	302	18%	0%	0%	0%	65%	17%
Mr. Anderson	301	90%	0%	9%	0%	1%	0%
Scott Dawson	294	16%	0%	0%	0%	0%	84%
Dana Brooke	291	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Gail Kim	289	93%	0%	6%	0%	2%	0%
Marco Corleone	281	71%	5%	19%	5%	0%	0%
Shad	278	2%	0%	77%	0%	21%	0%
Rico	274	47%	3%	7%	0%	0%	0%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Torrie Wilson	273	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Elias	272	32%	0%	0%	0%	0%	68%
Adam Rose	272	1%	0%	0%	0%	41%	58%
David Otunga	265	0%	0%	0%	0%	65%	35%
Yoshitatsu	261	79%	0%	0%	0%	12%	9%
Cedric Alexander	251	95%	0%	0%	0%	0%	5%
Damaja	241	58%	0%	18%	0%	0%	0%
La Sombra	240	86%	0%	0%	0%	0%	14%
Jason Jordan	237	0%	0%	0%	0%	9%	91%
Colin Cassady	236	3%	0%	0%	0%	6%	92%
Enzo Amore	234	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Mike Knox	230	54%	0%	0%	45%	2%	0%
Kaitlyn	227	0%	0%	0%	0%	56%	44%
Kenny	225	52%	0%	47%	0%	1%	0%
Joey Matthews	225	88%	0%	12%	0%	0%	0%
Emma	223	27%	0%	0%	0%	0%	72%
Johnny Stamboli	218	60%	40%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Jillian Hall	217	45%	0%	55%	0%	0%	0%
Prince Mustafa Ali	215	96%	0%	0%	0%	0%	4%
Mistico	209	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Tyson Tomko	197	7%	4%	89%	0%	0%	0%
Mandy Rose	197	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Summer Rae	196	0%	0%	0%	0%	4%	96%
Maria	196	0%	0%	67%	0%	33%	0%
Liv Morgan	194	1%	0%	0%	0%	0%	99%
Tony Nese	189	92%	0%	0%	0%	0%	8%
Cameron	188	0%	0%	0%	0%	24%	76%
Paul Burchill	187	54%	0%	46%	0%	0%	0%
Heidenreich	186	48%	0%	46%	0%	0%	0%
Sarah Logan	185	83%	0%	0%	0%	0%	17%
Rosa Mendes	184	4%	0%	31%	0%	65%	0%
Akira Tozawa	179	99%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%
Sonya Deville	178	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Lince Dorado	176	97%	0%	0%	0%	0%	3%
Lana	176	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Mascara Dorada	175	99%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%
Heidi Lovelace	175	80%	0%	0%	0%	0%	20%
Aksana	174	0%	0%	0%	0%	76%	24%
Kevin Thorn	172	29%	1%	63%	0%	6%	0%
Dean Malenko	171	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Jazz	168	96%	0%	4%	0%	0%	0%
Ricochet	166	91%	0%	0%	0%	0%	9%
Candice Michelle	165	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Robbie McAllister	161	51%	0%	49%	0%	0%	0%
Drew Gulak	161	97%	0%	0%	0%	0%	3%
Rodney Mack	160	66%	1%	33%	0%	0%	0%
Matt Striker	160	93%	0%	0%	5%	0%	2%
Tye Dillinger	158	33%	0%	19%	0%	5%	43%
Tyler Reks	151	0%	0%	0%	0%	86%	14%
Rory McAllister	149	54%	0%	46%	0%	0%	0%
Mason Ryan	145	48%	0%	0%	0%	23%	29%
Ember Moon	145	56%	0%	0%	0%	0%	44%
Sean O’Haire	144	76%	2%	23%	0%	0%	0%
Nikki Storm	142	64%	0%	0%	0%	0%	36%
Buddy Murphy	142	24%	0%	0%	0%	0%	76%
Luther Reigns	141	68%	5%	26%	0%	0%	0%
Elijah Burke	140	0%	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%
Peyton Royce	138	24%	0%	0%	0%	0%	76%
Lacey Evans	137	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	100%
Billie Kay	137	44%	0%	0%	0%	0%	56%
Name	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT
Dawn Marie	135	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Ariya Daivari	135	97%	0%	0%	0%	0%	3%
Swoggle	132	84%	0%	0%	0%	0%	16%
No Way Jose	127	20%	0%	0%	0%	0%	80%
Beretta	126	24%	0%	0%	0%	63%	13%
Jack Gallagher	125	91%	0%	0%	0%	0%	9%
Jesse	124	50%	0%	13%	38%	0%	0%
TJ Perkins	122	98%	0%	0%	0%	0%	2%
Simon Gotch	122	50%	0%	0%	0%	0%	50%
Deuce	122	34%	0%	62%	1%	1%	0%
Tommy End	120	75%	0%	0%	0%	0%	25%
Hanson	117	88%	0%	0%	0%	0%	12%
Chris Nowinski	117	35%	42%	23%	0%	0%	0%
Nidia	114	0%	17%	83%	0%	0%	0%
Mike Bennett	114	99%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%
Raymond Rowe	113	87%	0%	0%	0%	0%	13%
Domino	109	13%	0%	80%	2%	5%	0%
Grand Total	106,734	97.93	4.82	27.37	4.13	28.64	48.56
	Total MR matches	non-WWE	HWA	OVW	DSW	FCW	NXT

100 matches is obviously an arbitrary minimum. It’s not clear whether it’s important to set a lower minimum. For transparency, frequency distribution for total MR matches among the larger all-time dataset of 4,415 wrestlers breaks down something like this:

Among the 217 wrestlers with 100 MR matches, in recent years there seems to be a trending increase in the prevalence of wrestlers who have had the majority of their prior experience from non-universe matches.

The below column graph tries to address the question: Of the wrestlers who were promoted to WWE’s main roster (using date of 10th MR match as a proxy), what made up the majority of their experience prior to that 10th MR match: WWE developmental or non-universe experience?

And a second similar question: Of the wrestlers who were promoted to WWE’s main roster (~10th MR match), on average what percentage of those wrestlers’ experience up to that point was non-universe experience?

It seems possible talent development leadership played a role in these results. These charts may be reflective of the timing of transitions in leadership from Jim Ross (late 1990s until 2005) to John Laurinaitis (2001 to 2012) to Paul Levesque (2011 to present), and is consistent with an intuition (of mine at least) that Laurinaitis oversaw a period of WWE developmental that was less interested in non-WWE (“non-universe”) experience, maybe even saw it as a negative. I believe Paul Levesque had a similar mentality when he took over talent relations, but for whatever reason evolved after 2014.

WWE EVP Paul Levesque (Triple H) made comments in separate NXT media conference calls that suggest he had a change in philosophy on talent development between 2014 and 2015.

Levesque in February 2014 made it sound like he preferred talent come to WWE with less wrestling experience:

The indie scene becomes less and less of a factor all the time. It just does… We’re having to create the talent. They’re not out there ready to just get picked…  Sometimes it’s really hard to get people out of — they’ve been doing a playbook for eight years, to get them to come over to ours. It’s a tough transition. Sometimes [it’s] easier to almost teach guys from day-one, to just do [our] playbook.

Twelve months later, on another media call in May 2015, his view changed:

It’s funny, sometimes people will say — there’s this big comparison of like, ‘Oh, this guy’s an indie guy; this guy didn’t have experience.’ I don’t care where people come from or — yeah, indie guys are great because they have experience, whether I agree with their style or anybody does, it’s irrelevant. They have experience in front of crowds. And that is something you can’t teach.

Among the group of 217 wrestlers with >=100 MR matches, there’s no strong relationship between non-WWE experience and either MR match count.

But can we say there’s a statistical relationship between non-WWE experience and going on to have a disproportionately high number of matches on the WWE main roster? No. Maybe there are other analyses that might get the heart of whether having non-WWE experience gives one an advantage, but the relationship between those two metrics (a] percentage of non-WWE experience before 10th main roster match and b] total main roster matches) in particular is basically random (as indicated by the very low R-squared result).

But is there a relationship between developmental background and whether a wrestler is used more on A-shows or on B-shows? (Looking at TV programs only, i.e., excluding house shows.) In other words, are wrestlers with experience being signed and disproportionately cast in less important “B” TV programs (like 205 Live, Main Event, Velocity, Heat, Metal, Jakked, etc.)?

Again, no, there’s no sign of a relationship here. The R-squared is nearly 0.

But maybe it’s a trend that’s only emerged more in recent years?

There are some interesting trends, suggesting wrestlers with majority WWE developmental experience (as opposed to non-universe) tend to have the majority of their TV matches on A shows.

Despite Levesque’s aforementioned turn to accept wrestlers with non-WWE experience, does WWE nonetheless still prefer to put those who are more purely WWE projects into more prominent roles, i.e., Raw and Smackdown (“A” TV matches)?

It’s not present in every year, but especially since 2013, there does actually appear to be a distinct difference in the destinies of wrestlers with non-universe experience versus those without.

The analysis here likely only scratches the surface. I’m interested to hear any feedback or questions that might lead to better insights.