WWE Announces ‘WWE Campus Rush’ Recruitment Tour

WWE

Last year, when WWE rebranded the NXT brand, they too changed their mentality behind recruiting developmental talents, opting to focus less on independent wrestling stars, and more on college athletes.

With the recent WWE regime change, the mentality shifted once again to be more inclusive towards independent stars, while also still having avenues open for college athletes, such as the WWE Next In Line program.

Well, WWE today announced their latest avenue towards recruiting college athletes, in the former of the ‘WWE Campus Rush’ recruitment tour.

The tour will see WWE travel to multiple top NCAA Division I universities in search for the next generation of WWE stars, with WWE stars Bianca Belair, Big E, Omos, Madcap Moss and Raquel Rodriguez, all of who came to WWE with a college athletic background, addressing the potential recruits.

The list of universities and dates can be seen below:

• University of Mississippi – Tomorrow, October 12
• Georgia Tech – Thursday, October 13
• Clemson University – Tuesday, October 25
• Boise State University – Tuesday, November 8
• University of Arkansas – Wednesday, November 9
• Ohio State University – Tuesday, November 15
• University of Kansas – Tuesday, December 6
• Penn State University – Wednesday, December 7

Per WWE Recruitment:

STAMFORD, Conn., October 11, 2022 – WWE® (NYSE: WWE) today announced “WWE Campus Rush,” a multi-campus college athlete recruitment tour which will visit top NCAA Division I universities in search of the next generation of WWE Superstars.

WWE Superstars such as Big E, Bianca Belair, Omos, Madcap Moss and Raquel Rodriguez, all of whom have transitioned from college athletics to a career in WWE, will address student athletes at each tour stop and educate them about the global leader in sports entertainment. In conjunction with each university, student athletes will learn about WWE’s “Next In Line” (NIL) program and the resources that they can utilize including brand building, social media, fan engagement, media training and more. Each stop of the tour will include a lively competition that features student athletes facing off on the microphone to cut the best WWE-style promo.

“WWE Campus Rush” will begin tomorrow, October 12 at the University of Mississippi and will visit a total of eight universities from five conferences during the fall semester, including:

University of Mississippi – Tomorrow, October 12
Georgia Tech – Thursday, October 13
Clemson University – Tuesday, October 25
Boise State University – Tuesday, November 8
University of Arkansas – Wednesday, November 9
Ohio State University – Tuesday, November 15
University of Kansas – Tuesday, December 6
Penn State University – Wednesday, December 7
*Schedule subject to change

Looking ahead to 2023, ‘WWE Campus Rush” will visit the University of Florida, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of North Carolina, Texas A&M University, University of Oklahoma, Auburn University, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University.

“WWE Campus Rush will serve as a core pillar in our commitment to finding the next generation of WWE Superstars among today’s elite college athletes,” said James Kimball, WWE’s Head of Talent Operations and Strategy. “The talent pipeline from college sports to WWE has proven to be effective, as evidenced by current champions Roman Reigns and Bianca Belair, and we are looking forward to visiting major college campuses around the country to introduce ourselves in a new way.”

WWE launched its “Next In Line” program in December 2021 and currently has 25 active athletes with NIL partnerships. Three athletes from the inaugural class have joined the company following their graduation from school and have started training full-time at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Fla.

Additionally, WWE has exclusively hosted more than 100 college athletes from more than a dozen different sports at multi-day talent tryouts in 2022. WWE signed nearly 50 athletes from those events in a growing effort to find the most talented athletes in the world.

Learn more about the path to WWE at wwerecruit.com.

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