8th November, 2022
World Wrestling Entertainment, in conjunction with its Sub-Saharan Africa broadcast partner SuperSport, will host a tryout in Nigeria in 2023 to find Africa’s next WWE Superstar.
James Kimball, WWE’s Head of Talent Operations and Strategy, announced the development at a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday.
Kimball said the continent-wide talent search will be hosted in Lagos in February 2023.
He said; “Africa is a focal point of our renewed global talent recruitment strategy and this initiative in Lagos will launch what we envision becoming a year-round, multi-country effort to cultivate relationships and identify talent that will resonate with our passionate and loyal African fanbase.
“The region has incredible potential to serve as a meaningful talent development hub for WWE and we look forward to working with our tremendous partners at SuperSport to uncover the next generation of Superstars through this program.”
The Head of Talent Operations also confirmed that the tryout is open to both males and females in Africa.
Kimball, however, vowed that talents picked from the tryout in Lagos will be given equal opportunities like their conterparts chosen from other continents.
Marc Jury, Chief Executive of SuperSport, on his part, said: “The continent abounds with athletes and Africa has had several WWE Superstars, so this is the perfect opportunity to showcase fresh new talent.
“As there is a massive appetite among African audiences for WWE action and entertainment, we expect this initiative to be very popular with aspirants. SuperSport looks forward to telling this exciting story in the weeks and months to come.”
How to participate
As the “Search for Africa’s Next WWE Superstar” begins all interested candidates must submit a video highlighting their potential to become a WWE Superstar.
All interested candidates must be from Africa.
However, the videos submitted are to highlight personality and charisma and not any form of violence.
All applicants must be young, preferably 21 or a little bit older.
Kimball noted that the dream is to find a young African talent that will have a 10 years career in WWE.
However, all video submissions will be accepted until December 18.
To get started, all interested applicants should send a mail to garry.taman@supersport.com.
However, successful applicants will be invited to participate in the Lagos tryout in February 2023.
A select number of tryout participants will then be awarded an all-expenses-paid experience to continue their tryout journey alongside current and prospective WWE Superstars ahead of WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles in April 2023.
A fulltime WWE developmental contract may be offered to the top-performing participants who will then begin their new career at the world-class WWE Performance Centre in Orlando, Florida.
WWE and MultiChoice partnership
Last week, WWE and MultiChoice announced a major broadcast partnership that will see Showmax – the leading streaming service available in the region – become the new home of WWE Network in Africa.
The partnership incorporates all WWE Premium Live Events, including WrestleMania, as well as WWE Network’s vast library of original and archived programming available to stream on-demand by more people in Africa from early 2023 on Showmax, Africa’s most loved streaming service.
SuperSport, the sport broadcasting subsidiary of video entertainment platform MultiChoice, will continue to broadcast live weekly episodes of Raw®, SmackDown® and NXT® as well as all of WWE’s Premium Live Events in a multi-year extension.