Turner Washington can’t stop smiling. The son of a world champion discus thrower, Washington’s no stranger to the biggest stage, having won both the NCAA indoor and outdoor shot put titles in 2021. It’s not the venue, the wine cellar of San Antonio’s ritzy, Italian-themed Zinc restaurant. It’s not his dining partners, a mix of fellow Division I college athletes and notable WWE superstars, dubbed “WWE Ring Leaders,” who aim to help athletes make a successful transition from amateur sport to sports entertainment. It’s not even the ice-cold Bud Light he’s chosen, in lieu of the top-shelf liquor, house margaritas, and red wine chosen specifically for the event. It’s because Washington knows that smile, paired with his athletic achievements and personality, has put him in this very select third class of WWE NIL athletes, and has given him the opportunity to capitalize both professionally and financially in ways that until very recently might not have been possible.
The NCAA’s name, image, and likeness policy, approved in 2021, allows college athletes to be financially compensated for the usage of their name, image, and likeness. The NIL deals earned by students have ranged from Bijan Robinson’s local Lamborghini deal to the only promotion truly worthy of Decoldest Crawford. Long gone are the days of “These are USC no. 5 jerseys, not Reggie Bush jerseys.” WWE announced its NIL game in late 2021, branding its program as “Next in Line.” Athletes across major and minor collegiate sports, ranging from football and basketball all the way to volleyball and dance, are part of the first two WWE NIL classes. The NIL deals are meant to last through the student-athlete’s NCAA eligibility. While there are athletes as young as sophomores signed to WWE’s NIL program, there are also athletes like Washington, who have graduated and are in their final year of collegiate competition.
The restaurant is closed for the evening. The only lights on upstairs are lighting the entrance, the bathroom area, and the stairs heading to the wine cellar. At the bottom of the stairs, there’s a waitstaff of five: Two are roaming with drink trays, the other three with appetizers on skewers. Two local media members are chatting up WWE Raw Women’s champion Bianca Belair. It’s her third media event in two days; she was part of the contingent of WWE superstars headed by Sarah Schreiber and Titus O’Neil for WWE’s “Be a Star” event at the Fort Sam Houston Army Base and had media availability earlier that morning at the Hyatt Regency. Big E and Omos are having a conversation, each choosing water over the offered drinks. Select WWE personnel are talking with the restaurant staff about setting up a projector to air SmackDown in the background of the dinner.
The athletes all arrive in the same vehicle and are greeted with smiles and handshakes from wrestlers and personnel alike. Washington, every bit of 6-foot-5, 290 pounds, is one of the few people in the restaurant even closely comparable in size to the 7-foot-3 Omos. The other, University of Illinois tight end Luke Ford, seems to be the most engaged at the moment, shaking hands and sharing stories right away. Once all of the athletes have had a chance to greet the room and make their dinner selection, they’re asked to find their nameplates and sit at one of the three tables. Big E, the longest-tenured WWE employee in the room, sits at the first table. He’s the most recent “D-I football player turned WWE champion,” having played on the University of Iowa’s defensive line. Fellow Big Ten athlete Ford is strategically placed at his table, having shared the same sport and having competed at the same venues.
Before the meals come out (everyone is given the choice of chicken, beef, or salmon), James Kimball, recognized as SVP, head of talent operations and strategy, introduces himself, having chosen a seat directly across from Washington. Kimball is concrete in both appearance and approach. Square-jawed and heavy on eye contact, Kimball spent part of his 10 years with UFC as the vice president of their Performance Institute. Coming from a system that can only produce so many stars, Kimball and his team are thorough in their NIL athlete selection process. “If we really wanted to at WWE right now,” Kimball says, “I’m pretty confident that we can go out and sign hundreds, if not thousands of college athletes. There are hundreds of thousands of college athletes, and our program has gained a ton of traction, but we’re really selective in it. We take a lot of time to build out those classes. There’s a lot of advanced recruitment, understanding who is in the right year in class. We feel confident in what we’re going to get from a college athlete.”
They’ve already had recent success with the college athlete turned WWE superstar. Big E, in what has to be the largest tailored paisley button-down possible, tells a story very similar to another former WWE champion’s. He was a backup on Iowa’s defensive line and experienced multiple injuries before graduating. With professional football no longer an option, a chance meeting led to a WWE tryout. He’s one of the best examples of longevity and security WWE can present. He’s held the NXT championship, the premier title in what would likely be an NIL athlete’s first stop in WWE. He’s held the Intercontinental championship and countless titles and accolades as a part of the New Day and was ultimately the fourth Black WWE champion. As Big E navigates his sprawling career, Ford perks up, knowing that even good NFL tight ends (he’s currently preparing for April’s draft) have shelf lives.
At the next table is the aforementioned Omos. He’s the world’s largest living camera: He’s seen more of the world than 99 percent of its inhabitants and is absolutely fascinated by its wonders. He’s reminded about his viral moment at WaleMania, when he rapped Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” word for word, bar for bar. Like a child a quarter of his size, he puts on an “aw shucks” face and explains how he never expected that three minutes to extend as far as it did. But the House of Blues in Dallas was a moment—he’s looking at the story the larger world is telling him. He can’t stop talking about his trips to Saudi Arabia and Dubai, and the sheer wealth he’s experienced. Where Big E can speak to the number of gold belts he’s won, it’s Omos’s watch (with more than 20 gold links) that captures the room’s attention. Prior to WWE, he most notably played center for the University of South Florida’s basketball program, but his dinner placement may be based on his most recent school. After leaving South Florida following a myriad of health issues, Omos would transfer to Morgan State University, an HBCU. He’s seated next to Hampton University edge rusher KeShaun Moore. He’s part of the first group of HBCU athletes who are signing NIL deals and is the very first to sign with WWE. Omos shares something a bit more serious: During his time at USF, doctors discovered a pituitary tumor that would ultimately limit his basketball aspirations. But this would not stop him from training at WWE’s performance center, and ultimately becoming a member of its main roster.
At the final table is Belair, seated next to Washington, as well as Ole Miss cheerleader and dancer Ali Mattox. Where Big E can walk you through his long list of accomplishments, and Omos can speak confidently about the world that WWE can show you, Belair, right now, is likely the most famous female wrestler on the planet. Coming from Belair, “I didn’t really grow up watching wrestling” is both honest and encouraging. The Raw Women’s champion discussed her path, having been to three different schools in pursuit of her track and field dreams (Belair was a hurdler; Turner holds school records in both the discus and shot put) and how WWE wasn’t really on her radar. She’s effortlessly disarming, is big on eye contact, and explains her path in an even tone.
The first question is about the difference in college athletics, and a large-scale event like the Royal Rumble. Big E gathers himself and starts to explain the range of differences, with his possibly being the largest. “For me, it was very different. I played football. … You have a helmet on. I was a backup defensive lineman. No one ever [cheered] for me or cheered me to go out. And I was very aware of being half-naked in front of people”—the room collectively laughed at this bit of info—“and that was weird and jarring at first. I’m like, ‘this is strange,’ especially when a lot of our shows were in front of a dozen people, maybe 50 people, and it’s very different. So there definitely was an adjustment period. But it’s incredible now for me, I really love just being able to be in front of a crowd, having people cheer for you.”
Bianca spoke on her decades-long dedication to track and field and how she really took to the routine and repetition of WWE. “There’s a lot of similarities,” she begins, making sure to pay as much attention to South Alabama soccer player Abby Jacobs at the further table as she does the nearby Washington and Ali Mattox before mentioning that “there’s a lot of differences. I mean, as far as the hard work and the grind of it all, it’s the same. It doesn’t stop anything. The grind is even more here [in WWE]. The difficult part for me was I’ve always been an athlete my whole entire life. I’ve been able to pick up on things very quickly. And coming into WWE, I understood that I kind of had to let everything else go and be comfortable being uncomfortable, like not really knowing what I’m doing or not having anything of the history of what I’m doing at first. And I feel like in track, you drill in this repetition when you’re competing, you’re focused on the finish line, the gun goes off and you’re just focused on competing. In WWE, it’s sports entertainment, so you get to have a little bit more fun. I feel like when you’re in wrestling and in WWE, you get to perform, you get to be out there in front of a crowd. You get to have fans that are cheering for you, that connect with you.”
It’s easy to go over the star-making, wealth-building aspects of what makes WWE an ideal career path, but Omos, Bianca, and E were also very forthright about their struggles as athletes with curbed, adjusted dreams. E in particular has been a strong advocate of mental health, and how having such a large audience gives you a chance to leave your imprint on people who will value your time. “It’s really something that I kind of embraced as a human,” E shared, “I really struggled with my mental health, in college especially. I was very depressed in college on [medicine], was in a psych ward for a month. That was a very real struggle, not just in college, but for most of my life. Thankfully, I’ve been able to work through a lot of the stuff and get much better. But meditation is very big for me, something that I do on a daily basis.”
As the meals are served, Kimball talks about the progress of the first WWE NIL class, and the step-by-step path that’s been plotted out for them. “Within a year. I think in reality, historically, it’s probably, on average, taking maybe a couple of years for that development to get to a point to where they’re called TV-ready. I think what’s been demonstrated thus far, and again, these are exceptional talent that we’re talking about, who [are] Joe Spivak, who’s Tank Ledger on NXT Level Up, and then Isaac Odugbesan who’s Oba Femi, [who has also been featured on Level Up]. Both were in our first class of NIL. They started at the PC last summer. While they’re under term with us, let’s put resources in front of them to accelerate their development. So once they get down to the PC… ideally it’s a year. In some cases…maybe it’s six months. And then at that point, you have a TV-ready talent who’s 22, 23; look at the longevity of their career versus, again, someone like Bianca. Obviously, she spent a few years outside of college before she then joined with us. She’s going to have a 10-plus year career with us, undoubtedly, but again, there’s probably a few years there that would have been circumvented should she have come straight from college athletics. So that’s the goal here, too, is to start to identify those talents. But while they’re with us, while they’re still in school, give them a bunch of resources, so as soon as they get to the Performance Center, they have a good understanding of what they’re getting into and what it requires from them to get to the next stage.”
As the dinner winds down, the NIL athletes experience their first real taste of WWE fandom. They’d attended media events that day, and some had been guests at prior WWE premium live events, but they hadn’t experienced being recognized as individual talent, as larger-than-life performers trained to entertain the masses. Immediately outside of Zinc, about 20 feet from the door, was a group of fans, all with their cameras out, some with items lacking signatures. They spotted the NIL athletes, and both parties share surprise and intrigue, wondering “who are they?” and “are they for me?” These are the type of unplanned moments that Kimball and the WWE NIL team both encourage and expect. “They were into it. And to be honest, I wasn’t upset at it,” Kimball says. “What we want them to see is what it looks like as a WWE superstar, which a lot of the time is outside of the ring itself. It’s the Special Olympics event they went to. … They did this 2K activation. But fandom and being known and being a public figure is part of it. And, you know, hopefully that’s appealing for you. If it’s not appealing for you, I don’t know. Is that the right line of business for you?”
Washington may find a spot throwing the shot put on the 2024 Olympic team. He may use his business degree to eventually fund his own NIL deals. He may take that million-dollar smile to the Performance Center, to WWE live events, or to another record-setting Royal Rumble like the one he attended the following night with the other members of WWE’s second and third NIL classes. But he’ll definitely smile. He’ll smile at the chances he’s earned, he’ll smile at the interest WWE’s shown him, he’ll smile at the new fans he’s made over Bud Lights and Bexar County fine dining. WWE’s Next In Line program is in the business of producing new smiles for talent and fans alike. The next set of carefully selected athletes-turned-(potential) WWE superstars have all the resources behind them to ensure the smiles keep coming.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said Turner Washington is a member of the second class of WWE NIL athletes. He is a member of the third class.
Cameron Hawkins writes about pro wrestling, Blade II, and obscure ’90s sitcoms for Pro Wrestling Torch, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and FanSided DDT. You can follow him on Twitter at @CeeHawk.