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This coming Saturday night, January 14th, EVOLVE will earn a pretty important place in history as it presents what will most likely be the final wrestling event ever held in the building once known as the ECW Arena. Coming into such a huge event, I thought it would help people get up to speed if I took a look back at the first nine EVOLVE events and talk about how EVOLVE got where it is coming into this Saturday night.
While Gabe Sapolsky and Sal Hamaoui were both heavily involved in the management of Dragon Gate USA, the reality of that promotion was that the Japanese Dragon Gate stars, who at the time formed the core and main draw of DGUSA, only had limited availability due to their touring schedule in Japan. To fill the gaps in between DGUSA events, EVOLVE was created and, though it was also run by Sapolsky and Hamaoui, would exist in a different universe that would feature many of the same American wrestlers that would appear on DGUSA shows, but in its own environment with storylines unique to EVOLVE.
In a certain sense, EVOLVE became a sort of proving ground where wrestlers had the opportunity to earn their way onto DGUSA shows, but EVOLVE still set out to create an identity separate from DGUSA and, to that end, it featured a presentation and set of rules that weren’t seen anywhere else in wrestling. EVOLVE would be presented as closer to a sport than any other wrestling company where wins and losses not only mattered, but were meticulously kept track of with won/loss records posted right on the EVOLVE website. In lieu of a champion, EVOLVE would have leader boards that included categories such as most wins, longest winning streak, and overall best record, as well as “infamous†categories of people with the worst records in each category.
Beyond the attention paid to records, EVOLVE went even beyond the early days of ROH in terms of strict rules that not only demanded a code of honor, but forbade outside interference, weapons, cheating, or anything else that would not be tolerated in “normal†sports. Even getting disqualified would cause the offending wrestler to be fined and/or suspended, and it became very clear real early that EVOLVE would be a company that would be free of all the sports entertainment elements one would see on an average Monday or Thursday night.
EVOLVE 1: 1/16/2010 in Rahway, New Jersey
EVOLVE made a heavily hyped debut at the Rahway Rec Center in early 2010, and featured a main event pitting Davey Richards against Kota Ibushi. Richards, along with Sapolsky and Bryan Danielson, were among the minds who originally came up with the idea of EVOLVE and was meant to be a partner in the company. Danielson signed with WWE before the debut of EVOLVE and wasn’t available for the first show, but Davey did make the event and headlined against Ibushi, who had made a scant few appearances in the United States but had made enough of an impression that he made for a credible opponent for Davey, who was expected to be the flagbearer for the company.
After a fast and furious match, Richards came out ahead and put over the company before challenging his protege, Kyle O’Reilly, to a match on EVOLVE 2. O’Reilly, who had been training with Richards for some time before joining him in EVOLVE, had competed earlier in the evening in the first match in EVOLVE history as he defeated Bobby Fish, a longtime journeyman wrestler who would finally get a better shot at stardom in EVOLVE than he had at any other point in his career. Fish and O’Reilly engaged in a heated, MMA-based match that O’Reilly survived more than he won. Fish gave it everything he had, but this loss would set him off on a losing streak that became central to his own EVOLVE career for the next several shows.
One of the wrestlers who would go on to become a major star in both EVOLVE and DGUSA is Chuck Taylor, but he got off to a less than momentous start when he wrestled Cheech in a qualifying match on the first EVOLVE event. Qualifying matches were designed to be matches between two wrestlers to whom EVOLVE management wanted to give a shot, with the winner earning his way onto the EVOLVE roster and the loser maybe having better luck another day. Taylor won, but in a somewhat insulting twist that would help drive him on future events, the qualifying match didn’t count toward either man’s won/loss record in EVOLVE, so even though Taylor won, he came up one win behind everyone else on the EVOLVE roster because his match technically didn’t count.
Making Taylor feel even more persecuted was the fact that he won what turned out to be the only qualifying match EVOLVE ever did, as the concept was done away with entirely after this one appearance. This led to a storyline where Taylor thought he was being intentionally held down by EVOLVE management, but would throw it in their faces by beating all the other top wrestlers in the company. He started this quest by coming out to confront Ricochet after his victory against Arik Cannon and challenging him to a match on EVOLVE 2.
Also on EVOLVE 1: WSU Champion Mercedes Martinez squashed Niya, then said she was here for competition and would keep coming back until she got it. Munenori Sawa and TJ Perkins had the sleeper hit of the night with a fast paced, back and forth match that featured a lot of state of the art high flying and striking and made an instant name for Sawa that would lead him to main event another EVOLVE show down the line. Jimmy Jacobs defeated former WWE star Kenn Doane via dubious means, then found himself in a face to face promo with Tommy Dreamer where the New Jersey fans surprisingly seemed to side more with Jacobs than Dreamer. Johnny Gargano made his debut as well, defeating Chris Dickinson and then leaving to go out and party with Jacobs, Sean Davis, and the as yet unnamed Larry Dallas. Finally, Brad Allen defeated Silas Young, then said that he heard that Chris Hero would be coming to EVOLVE 2 and challenged Hero to face him in the ring.
EVOLVE 2: 3/13/2010 in Rahway, New Jersey
Not long after the first event, EVOLVE was dealt a major blow when Davey Richards made the decision to sign an exclusive contract with Ring of Honor and immediately pulled himself from all DGUS and EVOLVE events. I’m not going to go into all the politics and fallout behind that situation, but this meant that the Richards-O’Reilly match for EVOLVE 2 was off, and the company would now have to come up with another main event and other headline stars.
The main event we ended up getting, Chris Hero vs Ikuto Hidaka, certainly more than made up for Davey’s absence,and not only was an excellent match, but also furthered the storyline begun on the first event where Brad Allen challenged Hero, but Hero refused to face him because he hadn’t done anything to prove himself worthy. Instead, Hero faced Hidaka and in a bit of a departure, relied a lot more on technical wrestling than the hard strikes he had mostly relied on since transforming into That Young Knockout Kid. It wasn’t enough, as Hidaka came away with the win and then Hero was confronted again after the match by Allen, who had come out with Hidaka as his second. Hero still refused to accept Allen’s challenge, so Allen would have to wait for another day.
Hero’s tag team partner, Claudio Castagnoli, also wrestled on EVOLVE 2 and was more successful than his tag team partner, defeating Bobby Fish in a hard fought match that saw Fish again give it everything he had, but ultimately go down in defeat. His postmatch promo was interrupted by Chuck Taylor, who had defeated Ricochet earlier in the evening in his first “official†match in EVOLVE, and said that since they’re both now 1-0, he wanted to go after the biggest dog in the yard and wanted Castagnoli at EVOLVE 3.
Also on EVOLVE 2: Mercedes Martinez successfully defended the WSU Title in a highly competitive match against Sumie Sakai, then laid out a challenge to the Amazing Kong to face her in EVOLVE. Also, Jimmy Jacobs faced Johnny Gargano, who he considered to be an overconfident, smartass punk who was out of his league against Jacobs. Gargano put up a better fight than Jacobs probably anticipated, but caught Gargano in the End Time and got the win before rubbing it in Gargano’s face after the match.
EVOLVE 3: 5/1/2010 in Rahway, New Jersey
Chuck Taylor finally got his shot in the main event of EVOLVE 3, facing Claudio Castagnoli in a match that the fans voted on the EVOLVE website as the one they wanted to headline the show. Taylor made good on the opportunity, impressively hitting the Awful Waffle on Claudio to go from a qualifying match on the first event to winning the main event just two shows later.
Claudio had lost his second match in EVOLVE, but this time his partner Chris Hero came away with a win, albeit a very hard fought one, against Bobby Fish. Fish had yet to earn a win in EVOLVE coming into the Hero match, and though he did come close to beating Hero a couple of times, the real story was that Hero threw all his best shots at Fish but Fish kept coming. Fish refused to lose, and nothing Hero did could keep him down for 3 until it eventually took a flash kick and three rolling elbows in a row to finally beat Fish.
The issue between Jimmy Jacobs and Johnny Gargano continued, as Jacobs got in Gargano’s face after Gargano defeated Ricochet, then proceeded to show the youngster how it’s done by handing Brad Allen his first loss in EVOLVE later in the evening, putting him out with the End Time. Adam Cole, who had also found himself in the middle of the Jacobs-Gargano issue, made his in-ring debut on EVOLVE 3 in a losing effort against Sami Callihan, who also made his EVOLVE debut on the event.
Also on EVOLVE 3: Jon Moxley and Drake Younger faced off in both men’s first appearances in EVOLVE, with Younger coming away victorious after a more violent match than anything else in EVOLVE to that point. TJ Perkins and Kyle O’Reilly battled in an extremely good match that blended MMA, submissions, and speed. Perkins got the win, then challenged Munenori Sawa to face him in a rematch on EVOLVE 5. Also, Mercedes Martinez defeated Brittney Savage in another successful defense of the WSU Title, then laid out another challenge to Amazing Kong to face her in an EVOLVE ring.
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Now that we’ve got the story of the formation of EVOLVE and the first three events in the book, I’ll be back tomorrow to cover EVOLVE 4-7, which featured appearances by Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries, and Homicide, as well as further development of the characters of Johnny Gargano and Chuck Taylor, and other future EVOLVE stars.
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