NXT Superstar Johnny Gargano recently spoke with WWE.com about wrapping up his career in EVOLVE this weekend and more. Gargano admitted that if it weren’t for EVOLVE, he wouldn’t have had a shot in WWE and eventually signing with the company.
“If it weren’t for EVOLVE Wrestling, I wouldn’t be in WWE. If it weren’t for EVOLVE or WWN Live as a whole, I wouldn’t have made it as far in my career as I have. It started with Dragon Gate USA, where I started as a guy on the pre-show and wasn’t promised anything. I kept coming and doing what I do, and ended up on the main show and eventually won their championship. Gabe Sapolsky ran that. During that time, he started up EVOLVE Wrestling, which was the brainchild of him and Daniel Bryan, who named the promotion. When it first started, Gabe had this concept in mind. It was very different and unique. If you look at the Cruiserweight Classic, it’s similar to EVOLVE. I might say that EVOLVE planted the seeds for CWC. We’re coming up on EVOLVE 68 and 69, which are my last two shows there. I may have missed a few shows here and there, but for the past six years, I’ve been a part of the company in a big, big way. The flyer for the show calls me the “WWN icon,” because I’ve done so much for them. I’d say that I have grown the most in EVOLVE. Gabe gave me the ball. I was his guy, the one who could wrestle 30 minutes in the main event every single show, because that’s what I wanted to do. EVOLVE means the world to me. It’s really cool for me to think back to EVOLVE 1. I was just a kid, 22 or 23, relatively new to the industry. I had never been on that big of a stage. EVOLVE had a big buzz around it. I was a young, hungry kid who just wanted to show the world what he was capable of. I was nervous, scared and worried if people were going to like my match. Six years later, I’m on the poster, getting a farewell and top billing; it’s wild. I use that word a lot, but it is.”
Gargano will be joining the cruiserweight division on RAW when it starts in two weeks. Gargano learned that he would be part of the division from fans.
“I was actually at my bachelor party when the clip aired on Raw. My phone started blowing up with people saying they saw me. As a wrestling fan, Raw’s the flagship, what we tune into every single week. When you think of wrestling, you think of Raw. To think that there’s going to be guys like me, and when I say that, I mean the cruiserweights — I’ve known a lot of them and wrestled them before WWE. These guys are like me, they were told through their entire career that they were too small and would never make it or be on Monday Night Raw. For all of us to be coming there together is super cool. We’re all excited to show the world what we can do. There’s a New Era in WWE, and we’re going to prove that.”
Gargano also talked about NXT and more. You can read the entire interview here.
