Evolve, Puerto Rico, and t-shirt design contest!

Promoters always put the worst pictures of me on the posters!

This past weekend I wrestled for IWA in Puerto Rico. Although I didn’t get a chance to go the beach as much as I would have liked due to the weather (there was even a tornado!), I still had a great time. I beat Q.T. Marshall to become the new Puerto Rican Champion and at the end of the show I brutalized Savio Vega to the point he was gushing blood. My return on August 15th should be very, very interesting.

But this coming weekend is the show I’ve been looking forward to since the day the WWE let me go and it was the first show I agreed to do. EVOLVE (www.evolvewrestling.com) was initially conceptualized by myself and Gabe Sapolsky, the former booker for Ring of Honor. We felt that wrestling needed change, as most wrestling became stagnant and many fans were losing interest. Even though I signed with WWE, Gabe forged ahead with the new product, not quite what we envisioned at first but still a great alternative to what’s happening in the mainstream. EVOLVE 1 had two excellent matches with TJP vs. Munenori Sawa and Davey Richards vs. Kota Ibushi and the EVOLVE 2 main event with Chris Hero vs. Ikuto Hidaka was awesome. The one guy I was especially impressed with, though, was Bobby Fish. I’d known Bobby for a couple years and we’d toured Japan together with Pro Wrestling NOAH. When I saw the first couple DVDs I was amazed by how much better he had gotten and his match with Claudio Castagnoli on EVOLVE 2 was fantastic. I wanted my first EVOLVE match to be against someone I’d never wrestled before, but also someone I knew would push me to the limit. Bobby is that guy. He hits hard and can take it to the mat, which is which is what I love to do. I’m amped and looking forward to creating something completely different from you can see in mainstream wrestling. If there’s anyone who lives in the Union City, New Jersey area, I invite you to come to the show and check it out. It should be really fun.

Speaking of fun, I came up with a new idea for a t-shirt design while I was flying to Puerto Rico because I’ve almost sold out of the other shirts. My idea: me, as a mean looking teddy bear, brandishing a tie as a weapon. I put my idea up on my twitter and somebody mentioned I should make it a contest, so a contest it has become! People pressed me for a deadline so I said Sunday. I’ve already gotten some great submissions, but I thought I’d put it up on my blog and give people another week. You can send your mean teddy bear designs to danielsonfanmail@gmail.com. Whoever wins will get a prize... but what I don’t know! We may have to collaborate on it!

That’s it for this week. I hope to see some of you at the Evolve show on Friday or the Dragon Gate USA show (info at dgusa.tv) in Philadelphia on Saturday, which is my return to the old ECW Arena! It should be a great weekend!