Indy promoter Gabe Sapolsky claims in his latest blog he was involved with Paul Heyman as he was planning his proposals for TNA last year when he and the company were courting each other. The proposed storyline from his Facebook blog:
You might have heard the new Paul Heyman interview from over the weekend where he revealed some of his plans if he went to TNA last summer, particularly with younger, new talent. I’ll add something to that involving the man now known as Daniel Bryan in WWE. I was in the loop with Heyman about going to TNA. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t about to give up Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE, which are both very close to my heart, but I was going to figure out a way to possibly be involved with everything and even possibly tie in DGUSA and EVOLVE, but that’s another subject for another time and was a long, long way from happening.
In the middle of all the TNA/Heyman talks, Bryan Danielson was fired by WWE last June. After Bryan called me, I immediately called Heyman and in just a little while Paul had a brilliant plan to make Bryan a star in TNA. It was a four parter:
1) Have Bryan debut a new submission and tap out EVERYONE in under a minute.
2) At the same time introduce a new, huge monster with a new high impact move and have him beat everyone quickly. I’m thinking Goldberg meets 911 here.
3) After 3-6 months, have Bryan and the monster collide and have Bryan tap him out in under a minute. This puts over the submission and Bryan like a million bucks. Have Bryan continue tapping people out. After a year or so, Bryan cuts a promo saying “I’ve tapped out everyone in this company…”
4) This all leads to Kurt Angle, after one year, coming out and confronting Bryan saying that he never tapped him out and that TNA is Angle’s company. Bryan vs. Angle is on! Tell me that wouldn’t sell some PPVs with that build up.
I’m cannot verify if he was indeed involved with Heyman or not. For those who don’t know Sapolsky was a former hotline operator for ECW and booker for indy promotion Ring of Honor. While it sounds like a good angle, I’m not sure it’s a home run as he seems to feel in his post.
I agree with William’s assessment at the end of this post. While it sounds fun and good, I can’t imagine this angle being a major “home run” type of storyline. But then again, it’s just an idea so who knows how it would have ultimately played out.
Coming up with a good storyline or two also doesn’t seem to be a problem anywhere in wrestling, coming up with multiple storylines on a week after week basis is the real challenge.
I did get a kick out of him acting as if he wouldn’t leave the Indy promotion for TNA.