Professional wrestling legends Jim Ross who is currently working as a commentator in the All Elite Wrestling recently talked about the impact of Ohio Valley Wrestling on WWE which was the development Territory of the WWE throughout the 2000s.
The Ohio Valley Wrestling aka OVW is currently going as an independent promotion in professional wrestling there was a time when it was the development Territory of the WWE beside of Deep South Wrestling. In 1999 Jim Cornette who was a WWE producer back then became a shareholder of OVW and it became a development Territory of WWE. The OVW remained a territory of WWE for nine years and in 2008 it once again became the part of the independent wrestling of America.
Jim Ross On OVW’s Impact On WWE
After 2008, WWE formed new development territory which was known as the FCW aka the Florida Championship Wrestling. And we all know what happened next, after WWE was done with Florida Championship Wrestling destined to the newly formed NXT and made it a development Territory of their own which is still in existence.
At a point NXT became the third brand of WWE, but once again it is a development territory and where the WWE is concentrating on building up their talents from the performance centre.
The impact of OVW was used on WWE. It has produced some of the biggest names in the history of professional wrestling such as John Cena and Batista. John Cena work under the name of Prototype in OVW and the ring name for Batista was Leviathan.
Some of the biggest WWE stars apart from these two names havd held the OVW World Heavyweight Championship including the likes of Rob Conway, Paul Burchill and Simon Dean. In 2008 WWE ended terms with OVW and after that the promotion started running independently and it is still in existence.
Jim Ross who is currently working as a commentator in the All Elite Wrestling recently spoke on his Grillin JR Podcast where he talked about the impact of Ohio Valley Wrestling on WWE which was the development Territory of the WWE throughout the 2000s. He said;
“I loved working with those guys in OVW. OVW was one of the biggest assets that WWE ever had. They certainly were the frontrunner to the Performance Center and all those things.
“When you’ve got Brock Lesnar driving the ring truck and all the wrestlers involved in being on the ring crew – we weren’t gonna have to hire ring crew guys, there’s a bunch of them right there and let’s get those guys to do this. And because Lesnar grew up on a farm in South Dakota and grew up driving a tractor and pickup trucks, he was nominated to be the foreman. He loved that.”
H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania