Andre Chase Says WWE Originally Wanted To Sign Him As A Coach, Which Came With A Higher Salary

Andre Chase officially signed with WWE in February 2021, joining the company after a tryout during COVID.

Chase was previously with EVOLVE, wrestling under the name Harlem Bravado. Though EVOLVE was purchased by WWE in July 2020, Chase did not come over when others did.

“Gabe (Sapolsky) calls me in July and goes, ‘We sold EVOLVE to WWE. You weren’t under contract with us. They are going to absorb some of the contracts, but you’re not one of them because you’re not under a deal.’ ‘Okay, cool.’ ‘Stay ready,'” Chase recalled while speaking to Duke Hanson on Between Two Jobs. 

“I was still working out and staying ready, but I wasn’t expecting anything. In September, Gabe texts me out of the blue and is like, ‘Have you been staying ready?’ ‘Yeah.’ Five minutes later, I get a call from Canyon (Cemen) and he’s like, ‘How have you been? Are you well? Are you working?’ North Carolina was shut down. I had a work-from-home setup. ‘As best I can, I’m staying ready.’ He’s like, ‘You want to come in for a tryout?’ It was the first tryout in COVID. Essentially, he was like, ‘You’re an interesting case because we actually want to sign you as a coach. Come to the tryout anyway, and we’ll talk and discuss what we have for you. We think you’d be a great coach.’ I’m 31 and like, ‘I’m not ready to stop wrestling yet.’ They made it clear it was one or the other. There were no player-coaches. He said they were bringing in ten guys, it was a small tryout and everyone was getting signed, ‘You just have to come to it,” he said.

Chase noted that the tryout was cursed and that only three people ended up getting signed: him, Anthony Hendry, and Blake Christian.

“I get the call back in November from Canyon and he goes, ‘We really wanted you as a coach, but we enjoyed your tryout. What do you want to do?’ They gave me the numbers, and the coach was a much higher salary than what it was starting as a wrestler. I was like, ‘Do I take the money and call it a day on my career?’ They made it clear, ‘You can’t do both,'” he said.

Chase said he talked it over with his brother, and decided he still wanted to be a wrestler.

“The money was appealing and attractive, but I came here to be a wrestler, so I’m gonna be a wrestler. I called him and told him. He was a bit surprised. ‘You know the pay difference, right?'”

Chase would spend five years in WWE before being released in April.

He will now go by Andre Chance when he returns to the independent scene.

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