Gabe Sapolsky recently spoke to Jay McQuade of UPROXX about WWE’s Global Cruiserweight Series, the general landscape of professional wrestling and more. The Global Cruiserweight series is set to focus on smaller wrestlers and the action will be intense. WWE likes putting their bigger guys in the main events, but smaller guys have been able to break through over the years as well. The tournament is going to bring a lot of talented people into the fold and Gabe was asked if he thinks Triple H is aware of the fact that many of the participants in the GCS have the potential to be top stars.
“I think he’s very aware of it. He’s very open-minded. A.J. Styles is getting huge exposure on WWE TV right now, and they’re investing a great deal into him, and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t see him as a main-eventer. Take a guy like Daniel Bryan… he paved the way for this. Then you take a guy like Finn Bálor, who NXT is built around and has huge things coming up for him, he’s a guy who by definition is a cruiserweight, but is obviously getting a main-event push. Roman Reigns has a great deal of charisma, whether the reaction he’s getting is what they want; obviously they want people cheering him… but, at the same time, it’s obvious with A.J. Styles and Finn Bálor, and in the past Daniel Bryan, that they are very open to pushing the smaller guys that don’t quite fit the traditional mold into the top spot in the company.”
Gabe also talked about how WWE is now open to working with other companies, and he said that he believes any unwritten rules about working with independent promotions have been thrown out the window.
“I believe every rule from the past has already been thrown out at this point. I mean, we’re seeing things now that a couple years ago would’ve been impossible. From Samoa Joe being the NXT Champion… it didn’t look like there would ever be a time when he would even be in WWE, to them acknowledging the past with A.J. Styles… these were all things that were unheard of, but WWE has a cutting-edge mindset at this point and anything is possible. They’ve basically taken all those old rules and standards and completely thrown them out the window, which makes this such an exciting time right now for the fans and what makes 2016 such a mind-blowing year.”
Over the years Gabe Sapolsky has worked with many talents that went on to become big stars in WWE. One of those talents was none other than CM Punk. During his time in WWE CM Punk fought for change and after he broke into the main event scene it opened a lot of doors for independent wrestlers. Although WWE might not want to give the devil his due, Sapolsky had no problem calling CM Punk a trailblazer.
“He definitely played a huge role in breaking that mold. He was a trailblazer. There’s no doubt that his contribution to this is not insignificant. He was the first one to really push that door down, and that’s really opened the floodgates.”
Gabe also goes into detail about what separates the style of Evolve from WWE’s style and more. You can check out the full interview here.
The next two qualifying matches for WWE’s Global Cruiserweight series are set to take place on May 7 at Evolve 61 in New York. Drew Gulak will be facing off against Tracy Williams and T.J. Perkins will be going on one with Fred Yehi. The event will be available on iPPV and the stream will be available here on May 7.
