Gabe Sapolsky, who is the co-founder and booker of EVOLVE, recently spoke with Rolling Stone about his career. Currently, EVOLVE and WWE have a working relationship. Sapolsky was asked about how the relationship started.
“It started with some simple phone calls. They grew a very progressive attitude towards the independents. That was really led by Triple H. It’s very important to him to keep the independent undercurrent strong, as he put it. They realize that a lot of their talent now comes up through the independents. You look around at the guys from the main roster who have been in Evolve. Guys like Dean Ambrose, Apollo Crews, Luke Harper, Kalisto. The list goes on and on. You look at guys who have worked for me whether it’s been Evolve or Ring of Honor or Dragon Gate USA, and you add Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, and Sami Zayn. Go back to CM Punk or Daniel Bryan. You’re dealing with some of the big players in WWE, and they look to where they came from. They had an attitude that they wanted more guys like this, so how can they help the process along. They took an interest in us and we obviously were really receptive to them. They’ve been really generous in helping us out and shining a spotlight not just on Evolve, but on other indies too. It’s just their way of having this progressive attitude of keeping the undercurrent strong and help it grow. It works for everybody. It helps us because of the exposure that we receive, and it helps them because they have a closer look at the talent. It’s a perfect relationship when you get down to it.”
Following his run in ROH, Sapolsky started EVOLVE in 2010. When asked what were his principles for the promotion, he wanted to create something that wasn’t out there at the time and that was focusing on a new generation of talent.
“Evolve was once again seeing what had been done and played out, and recognizing that there was a new generation of talent coming up. Guys like Johnny Gargano and Ricochet, Kota Ibushi was on the first show, just to name a few. These guys were taking wrestling in a different direction, just like the guys who helped create ECW like Sabu and Taz and Tommy Dreamer. These guys were coming up and adding new things to the mix. It felt like it was time to change the pace of wrestling again. We saw that opportunity with EVOLVE. The original purpose of EVOLVE was really to be a sister promotion of Dragon Gate USA, which was the other promotion I was running at the time. Dragon Gate USA had the wrestlers from Japan, the Dragon Gate wrestlers, and that was the main focus of the promotion. At the same time, we found all these great Americans who needed a spotlight, but we couldn’t give that to them in Dragon Gate USA, because of the focus on the Japanese wrestlers. We decided to start EVOLVE to give them that spotlight and that stage.”
Sapolsky started in the wrestling business in ECW in 1993 under Paul Heyman. When asked how his relationship evolved with Heyman, Sapolsky explained that it took years to gain his trust.
“I really built my trust with him over the years. It’s not something that happened over night. I just did everything that was asked of me in ECW. I handed out fliers, put up chairs, I drove tapes from Philadelphia to New York, whatever needed to get done. I kept my mouth shut and listened and learned and grew into that role.”
You can read the entire interview here.
