7 months ago
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WWE NIL talent Mason Parris has qualified for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Parris overcame Hayden Zillmer 2-0 in heavyweight freestyle wrestling at the Team USA Olympic wrestling trials, while fellow WWE NIL talent Cohlton Schultz missed out on a place in his heavyweight Greco-Roman qualifier against Adam Coon.
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PARRIS IN PARIS‼️
Mason Parris qualifies for his first Olympic Games at #WrestlingTrials24 in men's freestyle 125kg.
📺 @peacock & @USANetwork #MTUSA | #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/t8Iig4g1Ir
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) April 20, 2024
Parris signed with WWE as part of their Next In Line program — aiming to bridge the gap for college athletes into professional wrestling — in 2021. Since then, he has continued to rack up gold medals in the 2023 Big Ten and NCAA Division I Championships, the 2023 Pan-American Games, and the 2024 Pan-American Championships. Cohlton Schultz joined the WWE NIL program in 2022, going on to score bronze in the 2023 Pan-American Games and silver in the 2024 Pan-American Championships.
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WWE's inaugural NIL signing was 2020 Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson in September 2021, following up on his signing with a class of 15 recruits in December. Of that class, fans will recognize Isaac Odugbesan as current "NXT" North American Champion Oba Femi and Joe Spivak as Tank Ledger — Steveson hasn't been seen since his debut match against Baron Corbin at "WWE NXT: The Great American Bash," which ended in a double countout and was widely panned. While not explicitly signed under the NIL program, WWE already set the precedent for signing athletes from other sports with main roster mainstays like Tiffany Stratton and Bianca Belair each having no wrestling experience prior to signing with the promotion; Stratton was a gymnast previously, while Belair came from a track and field background.
