#2 Ohio Valley Wrestling / Florida Championship Wrestling
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Developmental territories, where a Superstar goes to develop their skills, their character and their attitude before coming to the main roster to strut their stuff. Back before the wonderful world for NXT, this fell on other promotions’ shoulders.
Ohio Valley Wrestling was the development territory for the WWE from 1998 up until 2008. There have been so many Superstars that have passed through this promotion and it would be great to see how they developed into the immortals we know today.
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Batista, Randy Orton and John Cena just to name a few, were all present in this promotion before they made it to the big time. It would be amazing to have this sort of archival footage accessible on demand. It would certainly add a little more context to their careers and their uprising.
Florida Championship Wrestling took over the responsibility in 2008 until the development of NXT as a brand in 2012. This is where our modern crop of Superstars got their breaks. A really famous part of this history was when CM Punk showed up to wrestle Dean Ambrose, who was portraying a heel in the developmental promotion.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe this was filmed professionally which is a great shame. But WWE could be hiding the footage somewhere. Here’s hoping if they do have it, they stick it on the Network.
Developmental territory footage is an essential part of the experience for an enthusiastic wrestling fan. This is why NXT has become so popular. It is also essential for the promotion, as they can see what works and what doesn’t before firing it out to the main audience.
Hopefully, we will see this in the future and get a complete look at the process of building and marketing a wrestler.
