Norman Smiley Speaks About The Divas Revolution And The Future Of NXT

NXT coach and former WCW star Norman Smiley recently spoke with WWE.com about the Divas Revolution, NXT, and the late Dusty Rhodes. Here are the highlights.

On the Divas Revolution:

“Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Bayley and Becky have turned heads in NXT and have made a tremendous impact. They all worked so hard to challenge themselves and improve. I know that they are inspiring a lot of young girls all over the world to become Divas in the future. [Coach] Sara Amato [Sara Del Rey] has been an incredible addition to NXT to work with Divas. Sara has international experience and has a positive vision of how the Divas should perform. As a coach, I am so proud of them all. The good news is that we have many more Divas who are training hard and have a ton of passion to better themselves. The future for the Divas looks very, very good.”

On NXT:

The WWE Performance Center is the best sports-entertainment training facility in the history of the world. Everything under one roof: seven wrestling rings, a strength and conditioning gym, promos, commentating, announcing studios, rehab, videos and a staff second to none. Anything that a talent would need to make it is at the Performance Center.

On any given day John Cena, The Undertaker, Big Show or any other WWE Superstar can walk into the Performance Center, and they are eager to share their knowledge with the roster. When I started in [NXT precursor] Florida Championship Wrestling, we used to perform in front of a handful of people, at times fewer than 20. Current stars like Sheamus, Seth Rollins, Dolph Ziggler and King Barrett were on those shows. Recently, we sold out the Barclays Center in New York with only NXT talent and drew almost 16,000 people. Another aid in the success of NXT is WWE Network, which has given NXT tremendous exposure. We are now doing Live Events out of state and will tour England in December. I am so excited to think where we will be a year from now.

On working with Dusty Rhodes:

“Every Wednesday night I would go to the Miami Beach Convention Center and watch Dusty make magic and drama in the ring. Never in a million years did I think I would work with the man himself. I worked with him for the last eight years of his life, and boy, could he light up a room. He was so charming, charismatic, and quick-witted and he knew how to be a star. Even long after his days in the ring, he carried himself like a star and would not be treated any other way. He would say anything at any given time that only he could get away with, especially in meetings.”

You can read the entire interview here.

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