According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, WWE has officially acquired ownership of the EVOLVE Wrestling promotion. The deal was finalized after several months of negotiations between the WWE and WWN parties. WWE now has the rights to use the EVOLVE brand name and produce EVOLVE events.
Per the report, there will be EVOLVE/WWN content added to the WWE Network. Last month, PWTorch reported that EVOLVE was “going on hiatus” and had no plans to run any events going forward. The site obtained a Facebook message from from EVOLVE VP of talent relations, creative and marketing, Gabe Sapolsky that came from a private message board. Sapolsky told the roster that he is going to delete the private Facebook board because there are no plans to run EVOLVE events going forward.
EVOLVE’s last show took place on March 1st in Melrose, Massachusetts and the show was headlined by AR Fox and Josh Briggs.
EVOLVE formed a relationship with WWE that saw many NXT talents work EVOLVE events for a number of months. Current RAW Tag Team Champions The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins) were EVOLVE Tag Team Champions for several months. The likes of Dexter Lumis challenged for the EVOLVE Title in the past as well.
Last Summer, EVOLVE’s 10th Anniversary Show aired live on the WWE Network and the co-main events of the program were Austin Theory vs. JD Drake in a double title match and Adam Cole defending the NXT Championship against Akira Tozawa.
