Add as a preferred source on Google Austin Theory, the current World Tag Team Champion and a member of The Vision, revealed that his relationship with Paul Heyman started before he ever signed with WWE.
In an interview with The Early Bird Special, Theory looked back on the night he first met Heyman during EVOLVE 131, held at the former ECW Arena in Philadelphia.
“The first time I met Paul Heyman was actually when I was on the indies. It was the first time EVOLVE and WWE did a show together in the ECW Arena, and Gabe Sapolsky, that’s my guy, he pretty much told me ‘Hey, you’re the main event tonight and I got a surprise for you.’ I was like ‘Alright, I don’t know what that is,’ and then Paul Heyman walks in.
First time I met Paul Heyman I went up to him and I said ‘Hey, how you doing sir? I’m Austin.’ And the first thing he said was ‘I’m a big fan of your work.’ And I was like ‘Holy s**t.’ So, that was cool.
He comes up to me a little later in the night as the show’s going on and he goes ‘Hey, if I’m gonna introduce you tonight, what are things that I can call you?’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So he ended up doing my introduction for the match and the rest there is history.”
The show took place on July 13, 2019, and went down in history as the first independent wrestling event to stream live on WWE Network.
That night, Theory put the EVOLVE Championship on the line against then-WWN Champion JD Drake in a Winner Take All Match. He won the match and left the event holding both championships.
A little over a month later, Theory was announced as part of a new WWE Performance Center class. In 2020, Theory revealed that Heyman had promised to see him again “very soon” before leaving that night. That promise came true when Theory was brought up to Raw during Heyman’s tenure there.