WWE: Top Indy Star El Generico Reportedly Signs with WWE

It’s been reported that WWE has signed one of the top free agents on the indy wrestling market: El Generico. He’s traveled the country for nearly a decade including stops with Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, CHIKARA and Dragon Gate USA, as well Dragon Gate’s flagship promotion in Japan.

Source: PW Ponderings

Generico has held the PWG World Championship, the ROH TV and tag titles and won PWG’s prestigious Battle of Los Angeles tournament in 2011. Most recently, Generico headlined ROH’s iPPV Final Battle last month against the company’s world champion and his former tag partner, Kevin Steen.

The signing caught me by surprise as I had just recently begun checking for Generico promos online. I knew the guy could wrestle, and he has at least average size at nearly six foot and 200 pounds. My question was whether or not he could talk.

What I found was severely disappointing.

For those that may not be at all familiar with his character, he’s billed as being from Tijuana, Mexico, and he only speaks Spanish. Then you see him, and he’s a pasty white guy with red hair. You look a bit further and find out he’s French-Canadian and lives in Montreal.

As a result, his promos are disappointing. They are usually comedic in nature and rely on him saying very clichéd Spanish phrases. His catch phrase is “Ole!”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise from a guy whose character is literally “The Generic Luchador."

It will be interesting to see how they treat El Generico if he comes to NXT. Will he retain his current character (with a different name, obviously)? Will it be altered slightly? Will he lose the mask and go in an entirely different direction? Only time will tell.

This is another big signing that shows WWE Developmental is heading in a completely different direction under the guidance of Triple H.

Not all of the following names were during his tenure overseeing talent relations and scouting, but we’ve seen a real focus on the U.S. Indys of late.

In just the last few years, WWE has signed Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson), Antonio Cesaro (Claudio Castagnoli), Tyler Black (Seth Rollins), Dean Ambrose (Jon Moxley), PAC (Adrian Neville), Kassius Ohno (Chris Hero) and Luke Harper (Brodie Lee).