WWE is drawing major buzz at the moment, especially following John Cena’s shocking heel turn at the WWE Elimination Chamber event in Toronto on Saturday. That may give a boost to the new show the company is launching Wednesday night, WWE Evolve, although the show will have quite a different focus.
WWE Evolve will focus on independent and developmental talent trying to reach higher levels. It will air for free on Tubi in the U.S. and on YouTube internationally, with broadcasts initially airing at 8 p.m. ET each Wednesday.
Long-time wrestling figure Robert Stone, known for in-ring work as Robbie E on TNA Wrestling and Impact Wrestling and work as a WWE manager character (since 2019) on WWE NXT, will be calling the WWE Evolve action alongside Peter Rosenberg. Stone told Awful Announcing this week he thinks this will be a great fit for WWE, providing something new that fits into the promotion’s stable of brands and helps develop talent for their other brands.
“It’s going to bring something different to the table: studios, small wrestling, fans close to the action, newcomers from the performance center, from the world of independent wrestling, WWE ID talent, just fighting for spots, fighting for survival, fighting to make a name for themselves, fighting to become a WWE Superstar,” Stone said. “I think it’s the hunger you’re going to see from the origins of a career that’s being started. And I know that very well, because I fought for it for almost 10 years before I got a break in professional wrestling. So just to get to see that again is going to be exciting to watch, and I think it’s going to be exciting for fans to watch.”
Stone said it’s thrilling to launch this when WWE is receiving so much mainstream buzz following that Cena move.
“I see it as the cool thing again,” he said. “When you think of the Attitude Era and how everyone was talking about it, every TV channel you turned on, there was something WWE on it. When you were walking around town, people were talking about it. People were wearing the shirts, whether it was The Rock or Stone Cold. There were all the WWE superstars popping up on TV shows or in movies. They were everywhere. And I feel like that’s what’s happening again.
“And, you know, in my heart, I always knew it would get to that again. I mean, let’s be real, WWE has always been huge and always will be, but now it has gotten back to that other level of rock stars, of must-see TV. You cannot miss an episode. And if you do, you have to go back and watch it because everyone’s going to be talking about it. And that goes for RAW or SmackDown or NXT or what Evolve will be or LFG, they are all just shows that you have to watch, because something cool happens, something surprising happens on every single episode.”
Of course, WWE has long had a developmental concept with NXT, which Stone knows well from his work on that brand. But he said NXT has grown so much that a new developmental show was needed.
“NXT has gotten to a level now where it’s on The CW, we’re on the road, we’re packing arenas. It’s gotten large, a lot bigger than how it started out. And I think this is kind of just going to go back to what NXT was when it started, which was some independent talent, performance center talent just starting out, sprinkled in with maybe some veterans. It’s going to have that underneath feel of ‘Can these men and women break through and become WWE Superstars?’”
And he said Tubi, with its lack of a paid access barrier, is the ideal platform for this show.
“Anybody can have Tubi, right? Statistically, it’s very high up in the most downloaded apps,” Stone said. “And now, the Super Bowl is on Tubi, there’s no excuse. Anybody can have it in the U.S., it’s free to have. And it’s exciting because it’s the first official WWE programming that’s on Tubi, so how cool is that? So for everyone that’s participating on Evolved, they could say they’re making history. We’re the first-ever [WWE] show on Tubi, and both Tubi and WWE want this to really succeed, and I think it’s going to.”
Stone also thinks it’s going to be fun working with Rosenberg. Rosenberg is known for a variety of media roles, from DJing and hosting on New York urban contemporary music station Hot 97 to co-hosting The Michael Kay Show on ESPN New York. Stone said they hadn’t met until recently, but he was well aware of Rosenberg due to his Hot 97 work.
“Hot 97, where he is a host, I listen to it all the time. Growing up, I loved hip-hop; I still do now. And he was always the host on a lot of different shows on Hot 97. …I probably heard his name 20 times a day just having the radio on, so I was very familiar with the name. And when I saw he got into some wrestling things and was the host of a few shows and on the PLEs, it was kind of like, ‘Wow, that’s Peter Rosenberg, the same one from Hot 97? I definitely knew of him, and I definitely knew his voice for sure.”
Stone said when they did eventually meet, he knew this was going to be a fit.
“When you meet someone for the first time, you know if it’s going to work or not, you know if you’re going to hit it off. And in the brief time we have known each other, even when we spoke before we even commentated together, just by our first conversation, there was a vibe, you could just tell that we were going to get on well and this is going be good. We just have a natural chemistry when we talk to each other. We’ve just got to make sure we don’t talk over each other, because we both talk a lot!”
Stone and Rosenberg grew up in and have worked in the New York area for most of their careers, and Stone said they have both common experiences and dissenting opinions.
“He’s a New York guy, I’m a Jersey guy, I think we’re similar, but we’re also very different. We’re both opinionated, we both have our favorites, we both have our own things that we think are humorous, they might not be exactly the same. We’ve got chemistry, and I think sometimes it’ll be positive and we’re on the same page and sometimes we’re going to disagree, but in a good way. It’s going to be real banter, it’s going to be opinionated, and I think that’s going to make for an entertaining listen.”
Another element of Evolve is the talent it will feature, which will include both people with experience from independent wrestling and WWE developmental talent, including former college athletes the promotion has brought in to try wrestling.
“There’s going be the WWE ID talent which are from independent wrestling, who still regularly wrestle on the independents every weekend,” Stone said. “While they’re out there perfecting their craft, they do have a connection to WWE, and they’re going to be performing on Evolve. But then Evolve is also going to feature WWE Performance Center talent, which could be anybody. A lot of those are former D1 athletes previous to their wrestling careers.
“It’s going to be those new men and women, future Superstars, who are performing on television for the first-ever time, maybe performing in a ring with an audience for the first-ever time, and then these more experienced independent wrestlers. It’s going to be that mixture of talent. You will see wrestlers on here from the Performance Center who have never came out through an entrance before, who have never been under the bright lights before.”
And Stone said seeing some of that new talent compete may be memorable.
“You’re going get to experience all those firsts, and be like, ‘Wow, I was here way back when,’” he said. “Who knows where they will end up going or who they will end up being? I feel like when you tune into episode one, you’re going to be glued to it, and you’re going to want to follow everyone’s journey and continue watching.”
