While the Evolution stable was still being pieced together, Maven was approached about joining.
It had been five years since Maven wrestled in a sanctioned match but several days ago, he came out of retirement for the ISPW (Independent Superstars of Professional Wrestling) promotion in New Jersey. He competed in a Battle Royal for a chance to become the promotion’s world champion.
Maven was recently a guest on That 90’s Wrestling Podcast and during the conversation, he said while he was in WWE, he was approached about the idea of joining the Evolution stable. Before Dave Bautista was added to the group, Mark Jindrak was in that slot and had filmed vignettes with them as well. Maven said his situation did not go to that extent.
I — through the grapevine heard that [being considered for the Evolution stable]. I also know they, you know, they went to lengths with putting [Mark] Jindrak — they even went to the extent of running vignettes and filming vignettes with Mark and then, I guess once Randy [Orton] broke his foot, I don’t know if you remember but Randy broke his foot at I think a house show against The Dudley Boys and once he broke his foot, they obviously wanted to keep the momentum of putting an Evolution team out and it was approached to me that I was in consideration. Never to the extent of where Jindrak did. I mean Jindrak actually filmed vignettes. I was never at that stage, never. Would I have joined? Yes.
In 2004, WWE did a storyline on Raw where members of Evolution (Triple H, Randy Orton & Ric Flair) offered to recruit Maven into the group in exchange for him giving up his shot at Triple H’s World Heavyweight Title.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit That 90’s Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
