Effy says bravo.
The WWE Independent Development (WWE ID) program has continued to evolve since it was introduced in 2024, and it has highlighted independent wrestlers like Zayda Steel and Marcus Mathers. WWE ID talent is also part of WWE EVOLVE, which premiered on March 5th.
Speaking on his Weekend at EFFY's podcast, GCW World Champion Effy shared his thoughts on the WWE ID program.
“You want to get crazy on the push of positivity? I’m rounding this one out with some more later. Here’s another push of positivity, this is gonna sound nuts. But here’s my white flag, okay. As a world champion, as Effy, as someone who is looked to in wrestling, I’ve had a lot of people asking me who are part of the program or not part of the program, who were in their own space about what WWE is doing with the WWE ID program, and I think they’re surprised because they’re coming to ‘Hot Take’ Effy, that I think it’s the greatest idea ever. I’ll say this, Zilla Fatu, I sat behind a building with him in Chicago, and I said if I was NXT right now, I would be paying guys like you, who are out here really learning the craft on the indies, because I could sit here all day, there are so many things you learn in adaptability and performance and the way that you work when you have such a variety of promotions, experiences, places, opponents that you can work with here. There’s no better way to get good at wrestling than to be wrestling and not always wrestling in the conditions that are clinical or sterile or in a training method, than getting the real reps. I said if I was NXT, I would be paying you guys under the table to make sure you didn’t leave the indies right now because it is tough. It is so tough if you’re not the cream of the crop, to be making money doing this, to say, ‘We think you’re alright. We’re gonna give you a little backup money here and a contract and a little spotlight. We want you to keep working, and we think it’ll pay off.’ It’s a great way. We can talk about the logistics of risk assessment and not having them under house and not this, but really, it’s them saying, ‘Hey, it’s not easy to be an indie wrestler. We think this is good. We don’t have anything right now, and we think you should grow a little bit. Let’s see what you do with this bonus. Let’s see what you do with a little bit of money.’ I could say all day, you can have a hundred people signing up to it at what they’re offering, which is great, life-changing, career-altering money in the sense that you’re still working and still being a person, to just continue doing what you’re doing with a better spotlight. It’s a low amount of money that they’re actually investing, but they’re asking you, ‘Can you do it? Can you pull it off with a little bit of help, with a little bit of a slide?’ That’s so sick to see that they’re going, the health of the indies, if these guys are good at independent wrestling, the guys who are really good are leaving to go anywhere else or not wrestle anymore because it gets so hard out there. This program is awesome," Effy said.
Effy then brought up Gabe Sapolsky, who is part of the team working on WWE EVOLVE. He noted that they may have had their disagreements in the past, but he gave Sapolsky props for the way that WWE EVOLVE led to talent getting more opportunities.
"Here’s what’s really gonna mess people’s brains up. I need someone at Google to do me a favor, okay. In the past, I have been extremely judgmental, catty, but also thinking I was in a place of reverence, of my version of wrestling, of protecting the wrestler, of not having my information used in a way that I wasn’t attributed for properly. Whoever can change it and make the picture of Gabe Sapolsky that’s just a picture of me being cunty, please do it. The new WWE ID program has now evolved into including his EVOLVE program, which I had my complaints of at the time. Not just because I wasn’t included, but I don’t think the pay rates that they were able to give out were great at the time, that the skill of it, the guys were really using it to go in other directions. Gabe was off the map for a little bit, but he was out at many shows I was at, we had many run-ins with each other. We were seeing each other professionally, and he now has turned that into another program for WWE that was originally supposed to be a feeder system. Things went sideways for a long time, and now, these WWE ID people are getting the chance to get on that program and do the shows there while also still working the indies. So hat’s off to you, brother. We can disagree on so many things. We can disagree on bringing my name up and talking about what I’m doing in your seminars and things like that, but the health, and I mean this, the health of the independent scene is the health of all of wrestling. If there are steps and paths and clear ways for people who aren’t Effy necessarily to go like, ‘I need to know where this is going. I need to know that there is a path for me to support myself on wrestling,’ so for me to dog anyone else who’s providing more of those opportunities and making it his life’s work to seemingly make chances for wrestlers to get out, I can disagree with how it was done in the past, but I have to say now, bravo. I don’t think the first thing that you google when you google this man, who’s done plenty of things, I can’t dismiss anyone’s accomplishments, should be me anymore. It was hilarious. It’s funny, I’m not gonna back off on that. It’s hilarious that when you get googled, it’s me because I was shady. But the joke’s run its course. It’s 2025, push of positivity. Put the man’s picture up there, show what he’s accomplished, get me out of it, and let’s make good wrestling," Effy said.
YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT EFFY SAID ABOUT GABE SAPOLSKY pic.twitter.com/zkb3fcL2Ck
— Weekend at Effy’s (@weekendateffys) March 6, 2025
Zayda Steel recently discussed WWE ID. Check out her comments here.
Click here to see what Alec Price had to say about WWE ID.
Check out our coverage of the premiere of WWE EVOLVE here.
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