When news broke that Cora Jade suffered an injury at an NXT live show in Florida that was eventually ruled an ACL tear, it left fans across the professional wrestling landscape incredibly disappointed… and incredibly interested in what Booker T would have to say on the subject.

On paper, it made sense, right? In addition to being a two-time Hall of Famer and one of the commentators on NXT, who spends a ton of time in Orlando with the next crop of WWE Superstars, he's also an accomplished podcaster, with his Hall of Fame podcast a borderline must-listen for fans of the sport. Though he wasn't calling the show where Jade was injured, Booker knows better than most how the NXT developmental system is run and whether or not there needs to be some adjustments to the training process to avoid so many injuries.

While Booker doesn't necessarily think the way Shawn Michaels and company train wrestlers is the issue, he does believe the style of work wrestlers want to work is less than sustainable, as it's just a matter of time before injuries arise.

“We're talking about a lot of the young talent getting injured these days. I was reading an article about the way the training may be taking place these days maybe having something to do with the injuries with the talent on the roster,” Booker T said via Fightful. “Me personally, I really don't agree with that because they're not getting injured in the training, they're getting injured when they're working [laughs]. Right or wrong? But my thing is, a lot of young talent, say for instance Sol Ruca, Nikkita Lyons, and now Cora Jade, have had injuries. The thing is, a lot of the guys have had injuries as well. I'm wondering is it more the training, or is it more the work style? Because I've heard some of the ladies say they want to work just as hard as the men. They want to do dives and do stuff, take as many risks as the men. I remember back in the day, the business was about going out there and making sure you could do it the next day. But today, young wrestlers, seems like throwing caution to the wind is just something that they do on a regular basis.”

Whoa, interesting stuff, right? Well wait, it gets better, as Booker had even more to say on the subject and how wrestling has changed from his era to the current one.

Booker T thinks wrestlers should save big spots for special occasions.

After running through examples of injuries that have happened in the past on routine moves by seasoned performers like Rob Van Dam and his own experience vetoing overly dangerous moves in his Reality of Wrestling promotion, Booker T circled back to what he feels is the biggest issue with NXT‘s recent string of injuries: A desire to do Pay-Per-View spots on routine house shows.

“When you're working, you're not really thinking about the ramifications sometimes. You're just throwing caution to the wind. It's a lot of fun sometimes until something like that happens. But I don't blame anybody for going out there and getting injured or working hard,” Booker T said. “That's just part of the game, as well as where we are with the business. I can't imagine watching wrestling the way it was back in the '80s and '70s, the way the guys were just walking around. Of course, we've evolved to this. Mick Foley said he perhaps could take a lot of blame [laughs] for the kids jumping off stuff and going extreme, throwing caution to the wind, not thinking about how their bodies are gonna feel 10-20 years later. But as far as the training methods or anything like that, I really don't think it's training methods or anything like that. I don't think that has a whole lot to do with somebody going out there in the ring and getting hurt. But I can say the way we did it and the way they do it now is two totally different styles of wrestling.”

For the longest time, professional wrestlers worked very different matches in front of a house show audience versus a television taping versus a Pay-Per-View, with the former featuring less contract and the latter featuring the big spots like going through a flaming table or jumping from the top of a steel cage. While wrestling fans expect much more from their performers now than at any time in the past, maybe NXT needs to slow things down a bit to ensure that performers can make it from one show to another.