WWE President Nick Khan Addresses Concerns About Older Stars, Company Being ‘Down’ Since Last Year’s WrestleMania

Bill Simmons Podcast/WWE

WWE President Nick Khan has commented on concerns about the company’s top stars getting older and things overall being “down” since last year.

A lot has been made by fans and critics about WrestleMania 42 ticket sales being down from 41, a point even mentioned on WWE TV by Pat McAfee as part of his storyline of trying to “save the business” with Randy Orton.

Appearing on the Bill Simmons Podcast, WWE President Nick Khan was asked about things like ticket sales and attendance being “down” since last year.

He replied:

“A year ago, right after WrestleMania last year, Triple H and I got together and we said, ‘Let’s take a look at the future, let’s look at our top male superstars.’

“Cena, it was obviously his retirement year. We have, in some order, Roman, Cody, Punk, Seth, Brock. (Bill Simmons: I’d throw McIntyre in there too.) Yeah, I’d put Drew in there. And he adds to the narrative. They’re all 40 years or older. So we said, ‘Alright, we’ve gotta make sure we’re preparing for the future here.’

“We went down to our Performance Center to see Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom who run that on a day to day basis and run NXT with us. And we said, ‘Okay, let’s take a look at the talent here. How come DX, for example, when it was first starting to pop, Triple H I think was like 26. Why is it taking longer?’

“And Shawn said, ‘There’s one thing we could really use the company’s help on – we need to be able to tour NXT.’

“Because doing it from the studio every week, you don’t get the authentic fan response that young wrestlers need to know if their work is working or not. Randy Orton shows up in St Louis, he’s getting all the cheers in the world, he shows up in a different city, he doesn’t. You need to know how to react to that.

“He said, ‘We need to be able to take NXT on the road.’ ‘Great, no problem, give us a week.’ We came back to Shawn, ‘Let’s take it on the road starting in a month,’ or whatever it was. And then you saw the quick acceleration of Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Je’Von Evans, soon to be others coming up from NXT.'”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it, please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Does WWE Need To Worry About Lack Of Young Main Event Stars?

It was certainly getting to a point that the lack of young top stars on the WWE main roster was becoming a concern.

However, as Nick Khan noted, the recent arrivals of Oba Femi, Trick Williams and Je’Von Evans have definitely provided a boost in that department.

The booking needs to continue in that direction though, and that could happen at WrestleMania if all three of them emerge victorious in their repsective matches – particularly Oba Femi if he defeats Brock Lesnar.

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• Triple H
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