WWE has a lot of policies that some wrestlers claim holds them down. When Dean Ambrose left WWE, he said that wrestlers were written their promos and were not allowed to move away from them unless they were a major star like John Cena.
However, that is not the only place that WWE limits what their wrestlers can do to make them stand out and remain unique.
Wrestling Observer Radio reports that WWE has a policy in place that only allows wrestlers to wrestle the WWE-style. No matter what the wrestlers did on the indies to become a star that WWE wanted, they can only wrestle the WWE way.
Even wrestlers from Mexico, who specialized in Lucha Libre wrestling have to alter their styles to a WWE Lucha-style and not the style that they mastered over their careers.
The limitations on cutting promos are something Jake “The Snake” Roberts has said hurts characters because they never seem natural on the mic. This rule on wrestling styles is one reason some guys who were amazing on the indies, such as Apollo Crews, seem boring in WWE matches.
Norman Smiley and Robbie Brookside both worked styles that were not WWE traditional styles, and WWE hired them specifically to teach wrestlers who compete in their styles how to transition to the WWE style instead.
This is said to be a way to convince many indie wrestlers to move on to AEW, or even Ring of Honor or Impact Wrestling, over WWE as all three companies let wrestlers compete in their natural styles, and with AEW, cut their own promos as well.
Interestingly, another rule WWE has is to not allow wrestlers to sell injuries as they come to the ring for their matches. Vince McMahon wants all entrances to look the exact same with no variations.
This is why Seth Rollins could barely get to the ring to face Brock Lesnar on Monday Night Raw but then came out like nothing was wrong for his entrance at SummerSlam for their match. Once Rollins was in the ring, he was able to better sell his injuries, but he was not allowed to sell the storyline injuries during his match entrance.