3 Steps To Making A Successful WWE Debut

Over the past year or so, we have seen numerous wrestlers make their debuts in NXT and on the main roster of WWE. From former stars of Impact Wrestling and Ring Of Honor like AJ Styles to unknown stars making a name for themselves in the WWE first like Braun Strowman, the landscape of the WWE has been forever altered by these debuts. As a result, I’ve paid close attention to all of these new debuts and have picked up on a few aspects that make a debut truly great. I believe that these different variables can be boiled down to three different factors that make for a successful WWE debut. If a wrestler has hit all three of these marks, then their WWE future is looking bright. If they’ve missed one or more of these steps, their WWE debut may not be off to such a good start. So what are these three mysterious factors a wrestler needs to have in order to make a great WWE debut? Let’s start off with the first step which is a basic building block of every great wrestler.

Step 1: Pick An Easy To Understand Gimmick

Before a wrestler makes their big time debut, they need to have a gimmick. Whether it be a desire to prove they are the best or a belief that they are already better than everyone else, each competitor needs a character that drives their early stories. Now when a wrestler debuts, usually the audience is unaware of that wrestler’s character. Therefore, it’s up to the wrestler to have an easily accessible character that allows for the audience to make an immediate emotional connection to them. ‘No one has succeeded at doing this in the past year better than Bobby Roode. When he debuted, he made it immediately clear that he felt like he was better than everyone else, so much better in fact; that Roode’s mere presence in NXT would make the company “Glorious!”. This gimmick allowed for the audience to form an immediate connection with his character. The “Glorious!” catchphrase was instantaneously memorable and Roode’s mannerisms made him easy to hate. Another competitor who nearly perfectly was able to embody an easily relatable gimmick was Elias Sampson. Although he has since dropped his last name, Elias has not dropped any of the heat on him since he debuted. True, it took a little while for Elias to get a steady stream of boos, his wandering, Bon Jovi wannabe, guitar player gimmick made him an easy person to despise. I believe it’s gimmicks like that which help to make a wrestler seem memorable when they first start out in WWE. When this step has been skirted, the results have been disastrous. When The Ascension debuted on the main roster, it was clear audiences didn’t know what to make of them. They looked like they could be occultists, a Legion of Doom tribute team, or a Norwegian Heavy Metal band all at once. It made their debut forgettable. An audience is quick to write off wrestlers if they don’t deliver some sort of lasting impression in their mind. Now having a basic, easy to remember, gimmick is great, it needs to go through step two to make it a truly amazing character.

Step 2: Put Your Own Spin On Your Gimmick

Every gimmick has something that makes it a little bit different from the same cut and dry schticks. It’s that little extra something that keeps an audience engaged with a character. When Enzo and Big Cass debuted as a tag team, that little something was their perennial underdog status and thick New York accents and phrases. Usually, a team comprised of a bruiser and a small loudmouth character would quickly be written off as something of a New Age Outlaws ripoff, and it’s true Enzo and Cass had that criticism leveled against them, but the unique twist that they brought to the characters allowed them to move beyond that. Character similarities such as that have plagued superstars in the past. Ryback, despite the half-hearted cyborg nature of his early gimmick, was unable to shake off the Goldberg chants that filled the arena during his matches. American Alpha, despite their entertaining ring work, were always considered a bland Team Angle esque duo. I believe it’s what stopped them from staying together as one of the great teams in WWE. Going back to our first example even with Enzo and Cass, right now Big Cass has struggled after dropping away some of the factors that made his gimmick unique. Cass has becoming essentially the next coming of Kevin Nash’s gimmick. On the other hand, Enzo Amore has received a spike in popularity after he enhanced his underdog character without Cass and kept lots of the same qualities which made his team with Cass stick out in the first place. Examples like these lead me to believe that this step is the most important step in a successful WWE debut.

Step 3: Have A Memorable Finishing Maneuver

After creating the perfect gimmick, it’s essential that a wrestler has a moveset, or at least one move, that defines their in-ring abilities. Typically, this is embodied by the wrestler’s finishing move. For example, even though Baron Corbin’s debut match ended in just a blink of the eye, it’s what he did in that time that made his debut memorable. The End Of Days was an amazing maneuver, one that had yet to be used in a WWE ring to my knowledge, and made Corbin stand out in the crowd. On the other hand, wrestlers who pick generic finishers, such as The Velveteen Dream, tend to have some trouble when they debut. The Velveteen Dream (who I guess I will just refer to as Dream) has a rather generic diving elbow drop as his signature move. The unfortunate part is that he doesn’t even have the best elbow drop in the WWE today. That honor would either go to Xavier Wood’s coast to coast style elbow drop or Kairi Sane’s soon to be debuting epic elbow drop. If Dream were to have a better finisher to compliment his Prince style gimmick, then perhaps he would have gotten some bigger initial reactions from audiences. While it’s truthfully not the most important aspect of a wrestler, the finishing move can go a long way in making a lasting impression on the minds of an audience.

Overall, I believe that if these three patented steps are followed, a wrestler is guaranteed to make a successful WWE debut. It’s a formula that has been proven through extensive field testing throughout the years, and has led to many a memorable moment in the WWE. Therefore, it’s in my totally “expert” opinion that these three steps are the formula WWE should follow each and every time they debut a new talent.