Ricochet On Creative Freedom In NXT

‘Creative freedom’ is a term that’s thrown around a lot. The lack of it is often used as a criticism of the current WWE product, however down in NXT, it appears to be a different story, as former NXT North American Champion, Ricochet, explains.

‘The flippiest man that ever did flip’ (that’s an official nickname, I promise) was recently interviewed by The Mirror, where among other topics, they discussed how much input the NXT roster get to have with their matches:

“Oh, they let us [have input] – especially if it’s a TakeOver, or television or something. The coaches are there to bounce ideas off and stuff, but at the end of the day, they let us be us. We make our match and we do ‘us’, you know what I mean? They do say, ‘Maybe if you did this or tried that, this would be better,’ or something, but, we get to be us and they don’t push anything on us and say, ‘No you can’t do that!’ They let us be ourselves, which is awesome.”

In a time where frustration among main roster WWE talent appears to be peaking, with the likes of The Revival and Dean Ambrose being openly vocal about their creative stifling, it’s somewhat refreshing to hear that at least on the developmental brand, the talent gets to play to their strengths.

This could also go some way in to explaining why so many NXT call-ups are subsequently disregarded and their talent squandered, as the main roster WWE style takes over with a lot less room for the talent to fill the gaps of their weaknesses.

Also in the interview, Ricochet spoke about the toll his body takes from his high-risk aerial offence:

“Oh, I’m broken! [laughs] But I think the love of it overtakes the struggles that we have to go through, and not just me, because a lot of the guys here have been doing it for like 12 – 15 plus years. There’s wear and tear on every single one of us. We love doing it and love to go out there, but we are all hurting. And football is the same thing, or hockey or rugby, they’re all hurting. But we go out there and love it.

Luckily, here in WWE, they have a mega-awesome medical group. They’re there at every show. If something is hurting even slightly, they’re gonna ice it or something. They take care of us so well. For 14 years before coming here, I just never took care of my body. But since I’ve been here in NXT, they’re so keen on us taking care of ourselves, and that’s why there’s such a great medical staff to say, ‘You should take care of this or that.’ But again, day to day, we love it and, if we had to, we’d go out there and wrestle on a broken leg. Here they’d be like, ‘Maybe you should just take it easy!'”

If there is one opinion almost all WWE fans can agree on, it’s that the company’s medical staff and facilities seem to be top tier, unless your name is CM Punk. But please Ricochet, don’t die. That would be great. Thanks.

Credit to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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