WWE Doesn’t Need More Talent — It Needs More Stars

WWE has one of the most talented rosters it has ever assembled.

That might also be part of the problem.

Turn on Raw or SmackDown today and there is certainly no shortage of talent. WWE has world-class wrestlers, established veterans, promising younger stars, international standouts and people who have already proven they can carry major programs.

Yet somehow, WWE television often feels smaller than the roster actually is.

The same handful of names dominate the major stories. They interact with each other, challenge each other, headline the shows and occupy the championship picture. Meanwhile, a huge portion of the roster is left fighting over whatever television time remains.

And eventually, that creates a stale product.

The answer isn’t necessarily another signing.

It isn’t another surprise debut.

It isn’t another NXT call-up.

WWE needs to make the wrestlers it already has matter.

When Everybody Felt Like They Mattered

Go back to the Attitude Era.

WWE had a large roster then, too. Obviously, not everybody was Steve Austin or The Rock. There were levels to the card just like there are today.

But something was different.

Everybody seemed to have a purpose.

Val Venis mattered.

D’Lo Brown mattered.

The Godfather mattered.

Ken Shamrock mattered.

The New Age Outlaws mattered.

The APA mattered.

Hardcore Holly mattered.

Steve Blackman mattered.

Too Cool mattered.

You didn’t necessarily expect those wrestlers to defeat Steve Austin for the WWF Championship.

But if one of them suddenly found himself wrestling for the Intercontinental Championship, it didn’t feel ridiculous.

And if somebody moved up the card and challenged for the WWF Championship, you could buy into it.

That is an important distinction.

The roster wasn’t divided into “the stars” and “everybody else” nearly as dramatically as it often feels today.

Wrestlers had characters. They had rivalries. They had motivations. They interacted with other people on the roster.

Most importantly, they were on television enough for fans to remember why they cared about them.

That’s how wrestling creates stars.

WWE Has Created Its Own Glass Ceiling

Modern WWE feels increasingly divided into two groups.

There are the people WWE has decided matter.

And then there is everybody waiting for an opportunity to matter.

That’s dangerous.

When the main-event scene constantly revolves around the same selected group, everybody underneath them begins feeling less important by comparison.

A wrestler can win a few matches.

They can have a good performance.

They can even get a strong crowd reaction.

Then they disappear for three weeks.

When they return, they’re involved in something completely different—or they’re being used to advance somebody else’s story.

How is an audience supposed to become invested?

You cannot create stars through sporadic appearances.

Wrestling is episodic television. Characters become important because viewers develop relationships with them over time.

Austin wasn’t Austin because WWE told us he was important.

The Rock didn’t become The Rock because somebody in creative circled his name on a roster sheet.

Fans watched them every week.

They watched them win, lose, talk, fight, develop relationships, make enemies and evolve.

That’s the part WWE seems to forget when it becomes obsessed with identifying its next handful of “top guys.”

Ilja Dragunov Should Be a Warning

Ilja Dragunov’s departure from WWE is worth mentioning here, but not because this needs to become another story about contracts and backstage negotiations.

Dragunov’s contract expired in August, and reports indicate WWE had discussed retaining him. He ultimately left after spending significant stretches away from television. (Athlon Sports)

Forget about why he left for a moment.

Look at what WWE had.

This was a former NXT UK Champion, NXT Champion and United States Champion. He had a distinctive presentation, tremendous intensity and could deliver believable matches against virtually anybody.

How does somebody with those credentials reach the point where his absence doesn’t leave a massive hole in WWE television?

That’s the problem.

Maybe Dragunov would never have become WWE Champion.

Maybe he would have.

We’ll never know.

But he absolutely should have felt important enough that the possibility didn’t sound absurd.

Instead, another talented wrestler drifted away from the center of WWE television until eventually he drifted out of WWE altogether.

That’s not just a Dragunov problem.

It’s a roster-management problem.

And He May Not Be the Last

This is where WWE should be paying attention.

There are reportedly several contracts involving seldom-used main-roster talent coming due in October. The names haven’t been publicly established, and there is no confirmation those wrestlers intend to leave or that WWE intends to let them go. (Wrestling Noticias)

Good.

Let’s leave the speculation there.

Because the names aren’t really important to this argument.

The fact that WWE can have multiple main-roster wrestlers approaching the end of their contracts who have barely been seen on television is important.

Bayley’s future has also generated discussion because her current deal is reportedly due to expire later in 2026. Again, that doesn’t mean she’s leaving. It doesn’t mean WWE wants her gone. It doesn’t mean another company is getting her. (Athlon Sports)

That’s dirt-sheet territory, and that’s not the point.

The bigger question is this:

Why would a talented wrestler want to spend years of a relatively short career waiting for creative to remember they exist?

Money matters.

Working for WWE matters.

WrestleMania matters.

But wrestlers presumably want to wrestle.

They want stories.

They want opportunities.

They want to find out how good they can actually become.

And if WWE continues signing talented wrestlers faster than it can meaningfully use them, eventually some of those wrestlers are going to decide that being somewhere else is better than being invisible in WWE.

Stop Collecting Wrestlers and Start Creating Stars

WWE doesn’t necessarily need a massive wave of releases.

That’s not what I’m advocating.

It needs a tighter television roster.

Pick the people you’re going to feature and feature them consistently.

Give them stories.

Let midcard wrestlers interact with main-event wrestlers.

Let tag-team wrestlers interact with singles wrestlers.

Let somebody lose a match without disappearing afterward.

Give wrestlers rivalries that don’t involve championships.

Give them friendships.

Give them enemies.

Give them reasons to be standing backstage other than waiting for somebody to interrupt their interview.

And perhaps most importantly, stop treating the different levels of the card like separate universes.

During the Attitude Era, the WWF Champion existed in the same world as the Intercontinental Champion, the European Champion, the tag teams and the midcard.

Stories crossed paths.

Characters interacted.

Someone could catch fire and move upward because the audience already knew who that person was.

Today, too often, it feels like you have to be granted admission into the main-event club before WWE expects fans to consider you a legitimate main-event wrestler.

That’s backwards.

The audience should force WWE to move someone into the main event because WWE gave that wrestler enough opportunities to become undeniable.

Make the Intercontinental Championship a Door, Not a Ceiling

This is especially important with championships like the Intercontinental and United States titles.

Those belts should identify wrestlers who are knocking on the door of the world championship.

They shouldn’t identify which wrestlers WWE has decided aren’t world champions.

When an Intercontinental Champion confronts the World Heavyweight Champion, fans should immediately think:

I’d watch that.

Not:

There’s no way WWE would let him win.

That unpredictability is what WWE has lost.

Not necessarily unpredictability about match finishes.

Unpredictability about who might become important next.

During WWE’s hottest periods, you could feel people moving.

A midcard wrestler could catch fire.

A tag-team wrestler could become a singles star.

Someone could suddenly become much more important than they were six months earlier.

There was upward mobility.

Today, the hierarchy frequently feels predetermined.

And once the audience understands the hierarchy, they understand which matches matter.

That’s when wrestling becomes predictable even when the finishes aren’t.

The Roster Isn’t the Problem

WWE has enough wrestlers.

More than enough.

The company doesn’t need to keep asking who the next big signing is.

It needs to start asking a much harder question:

How many wrestlers currently under contract would fans genuinely believe could challenge for a world championship next month?

Not win it.

Challenge for it.

And have the audience believe they belong there.

If that number is only a handful, WWE has a problem.

Because the Attitude Era didn’t work simply because it had Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Triple H and Mick Foley.

It worked because underneath them was an entire ecosystem of characters who mattered.

WWE’s current roster has enough talent to create that same feeling.

It may actually have more pure talent.

But talent sitting backstage isn’t a star.

Talent wrestling once every three weeks isn’t a star.

Talent without a story isn’t a star.

And constantly revolving WWE’s biggest stories around the same handful of people while everybody else fights for the crumbs will eventually make even those biggest stars feel stale.

WWE doesn’t need another signing.

It needs to turn the wrestlers it already has into people we can’t imagine the show without.