Cassie Lee and Jessie McKay of the IInspiration provided words of help and advice to independent talent following WWE’s change of hiring process.
WWE, especially NXT is in the midst of change. As well as regular mass talent releases, President and Chief Revenue Officer of WWE, Nick Khan stated that the company will no longer be hiring “indie wrestlers”.
The news of impending changes may have affected the path and goals of independent talents whose dream is to reach WWE.
On the recent edition of their Off Her Chops podcast the former Peyton Royce and Billie Kay shared some sage advice for those still wanting to reach WWE.
“Don’t stop chasing a dream. If you are good enough, and if you are the star, like you said that you know that they need, they will sign you. On the flip side of that, if they don’t feel like they absolutely have to have you and this is maybe a tough pill to swallow, but you don’t want to be there. Yeah, like getting caught in the shuffle. You know, being a part of something where there are 300 other people vying for the one spot and you’re fighting for three minutes of TV time,” said Cassie Lee.
Jess McKay added, “There are so many companies all over the world that are fruitful. There are so many other companies where they’re flourishing, the industry in general. I feel like industry — just because there’s one door that’s shut, there are a million others that you can walk through.”
“It’s easy for us to say on this side of things that we did achieve our dream, we did win, we were the second-ever Women’s Tag Team Champions. We were the first women’s Tag Team Champions to ever win them a WrestleMania. We were, I think, the youngest women to win a title on WrestleMania,” Cassie said.
“Like, I totally get it. We’ve been there we achieved our dreams we did what others kind of dream of totally. So we can, we can step away knowing that we achieved our dreams, and that’s different are very different. So we understand that and we feel for everyone to like you said I wouldn’t give up this industry. It’s always evolving, and it’s always changing. There’s always going to be another opportunity. You got to keep going,” The former Billie Kay added.
“The only thing I will say and again, it’s so much easier said than done. If you told me this when I was 16, I probably wouldn’t have listened. Yeah, what I would say is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Yeah, firstly, because we’ve got 10 different baskets now, and secondly, if WWE is your goal, they want people with college degrees, they want people who are smart and who have a lot of interesting hobbies. You have something to bring other than wrestling, which is freakin’ tough. Because I know for the two of us, there was nothing else,” Cass concluded.
As the IIconics Lee and McKay achieved their dreams of getting to and finding success in WWE. They won the women’s tag team championships at WrestleMania 35 and became a much-loved act on the roster.
The IInspiration recently announced their return to wrestling with an upcoming tour.
h/t to Fightful for the transcription
What do you make of the IInspiration’s advice and WWE’s impending changes? Sound off in the comments below.
