10 Times Wrestlers Were Broken In The Hard Way
Weeding out the weak.
Bill DeMott was among the last of his kind.
Throughout his two stints as a trainer - in WWE developmental outfit Deep South Wrestling and NXT - DeMott's methods were sadistic. News of his 2011 return surprised many. Perceived as a John Laurinaitis sycophant, which is some Human Centipede-level sh*t, he launched the careers of not many stars at all. The Miz and Kofi Kingston emerged from the horror show that was DSW and went on to not inconsiderable fame, but then, Kofi was a natural athlete and Miz, a dire performer in 2007, very much learned on the job, doing well to even become passable. Deep South was an utter disaster because DeMott wasn't so much interested in teaching his students holds but making them run drill after drill after drill.
And yet, return he did, hand-selected by Triple H to coach at the Performance Center - "coach" in this context meaning tiring out his students to the point of exhaustion, and then making them perform dangerous wrestling training exercises they were fundamentally unprepared for.
To put into perspective how much the industry had passed DeMott by, his "MMA drills" alienated Kenny Omega, who wanted to learn how to wrestle, and went on to become the best wrestler on the planet. DeMott had no way of knowing this, but allowing Omega to actually wrestle might have given him an inkling.
Among the last, but by no means the first...
10. Batista
Batista was seasoned in Ohio Valley Wrestling, and you were only broken in the hard way there if, like, Santino Marella, you no-sold the resident supernatural act mere days after John Laurinaitis had bantered off Jim Cornette for the last godd*mn time, motherf*cker.
Prior to entering Louisville, and prior to learning the basics from Afa Anoa'i, Batista tried his hand at WCW's Power Plant facility, which produced just two acts of renown: a guy who didn't take any bumps (Goldberg), and a guy who was sent to another training school five years after debuting for a mainstream promotion (The Big Show). That might have something to do with the fact that the Power Plant was ran by DeWayne Bruce, a meathead with short man syndrome who took a perverse pleasure in making people vomit. Batista gave Bruce the thumbs down after a day, and later referred to him as a "bitter troll".
To enact this apparent fetish, he would take Batista and a legion of the luckless by the backs of their t-shirts and effectively strangle them when they performed push-ups, in addition to making them exercise every second of the day without water or rest. Triple H, per Dr. Tom Prichard, later hired DeMott because he was "fan of that drill sergeant Power Plant training", which seems at odds with his latter day rep as an admirer of the indy scene.
Now, we're not saying Trips purposefully orchestrated bad training to make himself look better when something of an in-ring regular, but...