FIP Owner Sal Hamaoui, FIP Champion/ROH Tag Team Champion Davey Richards, and former ROH/FIP booker and current Dragon Gate USA booker Gabe Sapolski, possibly believing that ROH’s days are numbered, have opened a new wrestling promotion for the Northeast entitled EVOLVE. Hamaoui recently has made a bid to be granted a New York State promoter’s license, which is the first step.

The project has been worked on in secrecy for months and I heard clues and hints about it at the last FIP show I attended, but as usual they worked me. Bastards. Seriously though, this partially explains the union between Dragon Gate and FIP as now Sal plans to expand into the Northeast market.

The company is beginning the tease with an online viral campaign, starting with this YouTube video, teasing the birth of the company.

The company’s homepage is already in effect over at www.EVOLVEwrestling.com. There is no word as to whether or not they will feature Dragon Gate talent, but I have a feeling that they will. Will they compete against Ring of Honor? Well considering DGUSA is running in Arizona the same day that ROH is for Wrestlemania weekend, that seems to be the case. I don’t know if competing for the same 2000 or so fans is that great of an idea, but whatever.

I’m excited to see what this trio can come up with!

Full Impact Pro returned to Crystal River, Florida and presented their “Fallout 2009″ event, headlined by two steel cage matches (as if we don’t have enough of those this weekend) for the two top championships in the company and to settle feuds and there were a few surprising twists along the way. Ron Bass was there also signing autographs and taking pictures.

Johnathan Gold welcomed us as usual and put over the double cage main event.

Match #1: Caleb Konley defeated QC Marshall. This was the first time that I’d ever seen either of these two (keep in mind, I have not attended an FIP show since February and have only read results since). Caleb Konnely is your basic undercard babyface and kind of reminds me of a 2005 Chris Sabin. QC Marshall plays a borderline-gay gimmick where he dresses in all pink, wears a boa, and calls himself “the man with the sexiest face”. A decent opener. Caleb won with a unique move where he half-applied a cobra clutch, then dropped QC’s head over his knee. (*1/2)

Johnathan Gold put over the 2009 Jeff Peterson Memorial Cup Tournament show in November, an annual Florida event that is usually very good and features a good crop of indy talent.

Match #2: Bruce Santee defeated Slyck Sweezy. Bruce Santee is a very popular indy worker in Florida, but I’d never seen Slyck Sweezy before. Slyck came out with some of the most unusual ring gear I’d ever seen; lime green tights, a green jacket, and a green hat. Green was the appropriate word to describe Slyck *rimshot*. No, but seriously, he did fine. Santee got the advantage early and then started to do a series of crazy exercise themed poses, allowing Slyck to get the heat. He beat on him for a bit until Santee hulked up and won with a variation of a side slam. Decent match designed to give Santee some wins. (*3/4)
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Yesterday, I was shocked to learn that Sal Hamaoui has parted ways with Ring of Honor. Hamaoui is the owner of Full Impact Pro and Riot Pro Wrestling in Florida and the World Wrestling Network; the company that produced, edited, and duplicated the DVDs for Ring of Honor, Dave Prazak’s Shimmer Women’s Wrestling, and various other independents, including his own FIP. Now it seems that relationship has been severed.

Exclusive: One source close to the situation which chose to have their name omitted claimed that somebody within Full Impact Pro described it as, and I quote, “I saw the iceberg”, an obvious indication that the World Wrestling Network believes what a lot people believe about the future of ROH – that there is no future. Another source also informed me that it has been talked about internally that several talents from DG USA would work FIP shows in the near-future. Whether this is influence from current DG USA/former FIP booker Gabe Sapolski or Lenny Leonard, I simply cannot say, but as a fan of FIP I can tell you that I loved when they brought in Dragon Gate stars in the past and will love it once they bring them back.

Hamaoui opened Full Impact Pro in 2003 and ran various spot shows in the Florida area. At the time, the booking was primarily done by pro wrestler Jaison Moore and the majority of the talents used were top FL independent names such as Ralph Mosca and former ECW main eventers such as Mike Awesome and New Jack.
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