Mickie James Believe WWE’s Evolution Pay-Per-View Was Set Up to Fail

WWE hosted its first-ever all-women pay-per-view, Evolution, in October 2018. And while the event was met with praise WWE has not held another Evolution show despite wrestlers openly pushing for it. Mickie James was one of the women behind that movement, but she confirmed on her podcast back in April that, prior to her release, she was told by a WWE official the company would never do it again.

“This one person… he says to me, ‘they’re never going to do it (run an all-women show she was pitching behind the scenes). Ever. Women’s wrestling doesn’t really make money. The Women’s Evolution pay-per-view, lowest-rated pay-per-view ever in the history of WWE pay-per-views. I get what you’re trying to do, but I don’t understand why you’re fighting so hard for it,’” James said.

James spoke with Wrestling Inc. this week, confirming “everyone hoped for a yearly event” in regards to Evolution. But on closer examination, she now feels the show was set up to not succeed.

“It was only really promoted for a month. The matches weren’t even announced but a week or two before. There was zero promotion or marketing,” James said.

“It was almost set up to fail,” she continued. “If there was as much energy and focus put into it as perhaps some of the other events, and made and highlighted how monumental this actually is, perhaps that wouldn’t be true.”

Following her April release, James appeared on the June 8 episode of NWA Power to announce she would be executive producer of an upcoming all-women event, NWA EmPowerrrr. The show will be held at Chase’s Khorassan Ballroom on Aug. 28 and will feature talent from across the industry.

James’ comments resulted in Triple H getting asked on a media conference call about a second Evolution show, an idea he didn’t seem particularly keen on. He also added, “the best female performers in the world are in WWE, and if they’re not, they want to be.” The prompted responses from several prominent women outside of the company, followed by AEW president Tony Khan.

“I think we already had, in my opinion, the best roster in wrestling,” Khan said on Busted Open Radio. “And I don’t think there is anything wrong with – look, everybody’s building their own roster. They’re gonna have good feelings about the people they work with. I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying you think you have the best show or the best company. I think where people got offended yesterday was when he [Triple H] said everybody wants to work there.

“People are confusing the two things,” he added. “If you want to say, ‘Hey, I think my show is the best. I think our product’s the best,’ there’s nothing wrong with that. You should feel that way. That’s good. But when you say ‘Everybody wants to work here, anybody of any value wants to work here,’ that’s just not true. It’s crazy. There’s plenty of people that work in AEW that have no interest in working there.”