Gabe Sapolsky

Gabe Sapolsky (born September 17, 1972, in Brookline, Massachusetts) has held creative and marketing positions in the professional wrestling industry. He is the current vice president of Dragon Gate USA and co-owner of Evolve, and the creator of Ring of Honor and former booker of Full Impact Pro. Sapolsky also worked for Extreme Championship Wrestling in numerous capacities including marketing, promoting, public relations and administrative assistant to Paul Heyman.

Early life

He attended the Runkle Elementary School and later Brookline High School, graduating in 1990. He received his B.A. in Communications from Temple University and graduated in 1994.

Career

Sapolsky began his career with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) writing a company newsletter. Sapolsky was hired full-time shortly after graduating from Temple University about the same time that ECW opened its first office in Philadelphia. Sapolsky became a protege of Paul Heyman and handled many different responsibilities. He became an official RF Video employee in 2001, shortly after ECW closed.[1]

In 2002, Sapolsky co-created and co-founded Ring of Honor. Sapolsky was quickly named the booker (head writer) of the promotion and immediately put the company on the map with an innovative and cutting edge style of booking. ROH became the most critically acclaimed wrestling promotion of the 2000s under Sapolsky's guidance and leadership. As the booker of ROH, Sapolsky won Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Best Booker award four years in a row from 2004 to 2007.[2]

Sapolsky was also the booker for Full Impact Pro, an independent promotion in Florida that formerly was the sister promotion of Ring of Honor. Sapolsky also used the alter ego Jimmy Bower for commentary.

On October 26, 2008, Ring of Honor made an announcement stating that Gabe Sapolsky was no longer working with Ring of Honor.

After Gabe's departure from Ring Of Honor, he also ceased his roles with Full Impact Pro.

Gabe then did a series of blogs on his My Space page discussing his booking styles.

On April 14, 2009 Gabe Sapolsky announced the launch of Dragon Gate USA with himself as its Vice President. The promotion's first show was held July 25, 2009 at The Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In early 2010 Sapolsky co-founded Evolve Wrestling.

Other media

Gabe Sapolsky was featured in a Newsday article concerning the potential slump in professional wrestling in the wake of the Chris Benoit double murder and suicide. Sapolsky was featured alongside Roderick Strong, also representing Ring of Honor. Sapolsky stated, "Chris Benoit was a wrestler's wrestler. It was devastating...we saw our hero fall from grace in the worst way possible. WWE does not represent the entire industry, just because someone is a professional wrestler doesn't automatically put them in this category that they're going to be a drug user."[3]

Awards and accomplishments

  • Best Booker (2004-2007)[2]

References

  1. ↑ Shoot with RF Video - 4067
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Meltzer, Dave (January 30, 2012). "Jan 30 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Gigantic year-end awards issue, best and worst in all categories plus UFC on FX 1, death of Savannah Jack, ratings, tons and tons of news". Wrestling Observer Newsletter (Campbell, California): 27. ISSN 1083-9593.
  3. ↑ Castillo, Alfonso A. (July 27, 2007), "Fighting Scandal's Fallout" (– Scholar search), Newsday (Friday): A26

External links