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When WWE EVOLVE launched on Tubi, it promised to showcase the next wave of WWE talent, young, hungry wrestlers carving out their identities in real time. At the forefront of that initiative stands 22-year old Jackson Drake, the brand’s inaugural Men’s Champion, a fiery competitor whose confidence and charisma have quickly made him the face of WWE’s newest frontier.
Drake’s rise through WWE’s system has been swift, and, by his own admission, surreal. “In December, it’ll be nine years since I started wrestling,” he says. “I’m very young, but I feel like I’ve already had quite a long career.”
That career journey has taken him from North Carolina and Tennessee independents, providing experience that helped Drake pivot quickly when WWE introduced its new ID Program, an initiative designed to bridge elite prospects from the independent scene to WWE’s developmental ecosystem. What began as training sessions at the Performance Center soon evolved, literally, into a fully-fledged weekly show as WWE resurrected the EVOLVE promotion they purchased several years back.
“There had never been anything quite like it,” Drake explained. “None of us knew what to expect. It started with getting to train at the PC, then showcase matches, and then one day, they said, ‘Hey, WWE EVOLVE is going to be a thing.’ It’s been crazy. I’d say it’s working out pretty damn good so far.”
For a young wrestler like Drake, walking into the WWE Performance Center for the first time was nothing short of surreal. The state-of-the-art facility in Orlando serves as the beating heart of WWE’s developmental system, a far cry from the small-town venues where Drake first made his name.
“Dude, I was having to pinch myself every two seconds,” he said, still in awe of that first day. “You never forget your first, right? You watch wrestling on TV and take it for granted, but when you walk in and see everything, the camera crew, the sound guys, the agents, everybody putting in the work, it’s just admirable. You realize how much goes into making something special.”
For Drake, every trip to the Performance Center is both a classroom and a test. “It definitely taught me it’s not time to get ready, it’s time to be ready,” he explained. “When opportunity comes knocking, there’s no guarantee it’s gonna come back.”
The EVOLVE brand now airs every Wednesday night on Tubi, part of the FOX family, and Drake takes pride in knowing he was there from the ground floor. “I’m the first ever champion of the first ever WWE show on Tubi,” he noted. “There will always be a next, but there will never be another first.”
For Drake, the title isn’t just about his career. He noted it’s validation for his family and the people who supported him long before he had TV cameras in his face.
“From the second I told my parents what I wanted to do when I grew up, they supported me,” he says. “To be able to bring home a WWE championship and show them, ‘Hey, it wasn’t all for nothing’, that’s my favorite part about it.”
Raised in North Carolina, one of wrestling’s traditional hotbeds, Drake found his calling early.
“The wrestling bug hit my friends and then left them, but it never left me,” he remembers. “When I was 13, my dad got me linked up with a wrestling trainer, LeBron Zozone, at Firestar Pro Wrestling. My dad’s a carpenter—he built Kozone some entrance stuff and lights, and in exchange, Kozone started training me. It was a good trade for Dad.”
That blue-collar foundation shaped Drake’s work ethic and his appreciation for the craft. He admits he started off idolizing the flashier high-flyers: “Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy, John Morrison”, among others, but grew into a student of the game. “As I got older, I started watching Ric Flair, Nick Bockwinkel, Buddy Rogers,” he says. “I love learning. Wrestling has an endless library, and I’ll never get through it all.”
There's also an endless well of knowledge at the WWE Performance Center. Part of what has made Drake’s development so impressive is the wealth of minds he’s been able to tap into. At the PC, Jackson has trained under a wide range of coaches and veterans whose careers span multiple eras and styles of professional wrestling.
“You know what’s cool?” Drake said. “They’re all so different. [Norman] Smiley’s great. [Dave] Finley’s great. Coach Lince [Dorado], Terry Taylor, he’s one of the best. He’s a hard-ass, but he’s also hilarious. It’s the perfect balance of joking around but working hard.”
That diversity of perspective, he said, helps keeps him grounded and always learning. “It’s a lot to take in, a lot of information to retain, but it’s amazing just to have the opportunity to sit under all those respective learning trees.”
From Norman Smiley’s smooth technical style to Finlay’s gritty realism, and the guidance of veterans like Taylor and even Shawn Michaels, Drake’s training experience reads like a crash course in wrestling history, one that’s already paying dividends in how he approaches every match.
Drake credits his time in WWE for sharpening his mindset as much as his in-ring skills. “It taught me it’s not time to get ready, it’s time to be ready,” he explains. “When opportunity comes knocking, there’s no guarantee it’s gonna come back.”
That mentality is essential in the competitive environment of EVOLVE, where every performer is fighting for a breakout moment. “Nobody accidentally ends up in WWE,” Drake said. “If you’re here, it’s because you’re one of the best and you’re one of the hungriest. Everyone’s competition, but there’s also respect. We all know how hard it is to get here.”
Drake also leads The Vanity Project, a dominant faction that’s become a cornerstone of the EVOLVE brand. At first, he wasn’t sure how the dynamic would work.
“I didn’t know how it was gonna go,” he admitted. “We’re all so different, me, this angry savage; Swipe Right, a couple of party animals; The Real Deals, who are flashy and technical; and Bryce Donovan, the quiet powerhouse. But whoever put that group together is a genius. I’ve become really close with all those guys.”
Still, Drake understands that EVOLVE isn’t just a proving ground for him. If it works as designed, it’s a launchpad for an entire generation. “We’re the first-ever class of WWE ID,” he says. “The first-ever WWE EVOLVE champion. It’s going good so far, and the longer the road, the better the story in the end.”
The story continues every Wednesday on Tubi (internationally on the WWE YouTube channel), where fans can watch Jackson Drake inscribe his next chapter in the ring in real time.
“I’ll just say this,” Drake grinned as he slid into promotional mode. “Every Wednesday at eight o’clock, you don’t want to miss Heartbreak Drake.”
WWE EVOLVE airs weekly on Tubi.tv
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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