AJ Styles has shared his impression about the evolution of talents arriving at WWE without previous experience in professional wrestling. During a conversation on The AJ Styles Show, Styles argued that athletes coming from collegiate sports seem to adapt more quickly to the company's development system than their male counterparts. The former wrestler mentioned Sol Ruca as one of the examples of talent internally developed by WWE and considered that the company is finding it easier to develop new stars within its women's division.
“I think you'll find more talent developed here in the women's division than in the men's. I think that's how it works. For some reason, women coming from college assimilate it faster than men. It's strange. But in the independent circuit, it's the opposite: men learn it faster than women. I don't know why it happens,” Styles affirmed. This is a personal perception based on his experience within the WWE environment, not an explanation supported by data on the performance of one talent over another.
Styles acknowledged that his own trajectory influences how he analyzes the independent circuit. Before becoming an established figure, he spent years developing outside of major companies, and he believes that many wrestlers who follow that path come with a fundamental advantage: they already know the product and have consciously chosen to dedicate themselves to professional wrestling. “I have a bias when it comes to the indies, because that's where I come from. But I think those guys wanted to be professional wrestlers. They watched professional wrestling and know how it should look,” he explained.
For Styles, one of the differences that can slow down the adaptation of some male recruits coming from collegiate sports is related to the confidence needed to compete at the highest level. According to his reading, reaching the elite of elite sports usually requires great personal confidence, a quality that can become an obstacle if the athlete fails to adapt to the interpretative and narrative demands of professional wrestling. “To be so good, to be a top-tier athlete, to be at the top of athleticism, you need ego. That ego stays within them when they arrive at WWE, and we have to find a way to eliminate it as soon as possible,” he pointed out.
Styles himself recalled having to go through a similar process. With a background in collegiate wrestling, he admitted that initially, he looked at the entertainment component that is an essential part of professional wrestling with some distance. “Even I wrestled in college and, to some extent, thought: 'I'm a wrestler, I don't know anything about that damn entertainment part.' I had to discover it too. I think that's what slows down the guys during that process, although I could be wrong,” he added. Styles did not question that male recruits can become big stars, but he considers that, currently, some athletes like Sol Ruca are overcoming that transition within the Performance Center sooner.
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