We recently connected with Robert Adams and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Robert , thanks for joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

Myself and Patrick Bentley started this out of necessity in the beginning. We wrestled on the independent level in the south. Eventually we went to NWA Wildside and was only there maybe a few months before it was sold and it evolved into NWA Anarchy. I had just purchased a new singlet which at the time was around 200.00 and it somehow was snagged in the ring and ripped the spandex open. This wasn’t really repairable without noticing what was once a huge hole but now stitched together. I had called home and asked my mom if she had a sewing machine that I could borrow so I could compare the stitching in the in the singlet to what was on her machine. Jana, a girl I was seeing at the time purchased the spandex for me (I was a broke college student) and I got to work. Sewing was definitely not in my bag of skills, I can remember thinking then that maybe I should have paid attention in Home Economics while in high school. My first singlet came out decent and we began making Patrick’s gear also. One of his first pair of trunks was a silhouette off himself all hand cut and sewn. In the beginning we never made gear for anyone else, until we were approached to make gear for friends that we wrestled with. I”m not sure there was an actual idea to building the business. We started taking orders out of necessity to make money. The more gear we made the better we started to be. The first year was a learning experience, a ton of mistakes were made but we made sure we improved upon what we did. Many aggravations that first year also. When you create something and you truly believe you’ve nailed it on all levels just to find out it doesn’t fit the client correctly. That was always disheartening but we kept moving forward. It was probably three year after we began making gear that I (Robert) was hired at WWE and started traveling with them, this was at the end of 2007.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Robert Adams co-owner of Main Event Gear along with my brother in law Patrick Bentley. I think maybe I had told to much of our story in another question, lol. We essentially started Main Event Gear out of necessity for our own gear which then turned into a necessity for more income, which as college students it was scarce. We create professional wrestling attire for numerous talent around the world. From the guys/girls just starting and paying their dues to the top of the game at WWE. Clients will reach out with an idea and we will throw ideas at each other until we have created a vision for what they are needing.This process could last two days or possibly a week or more. Once we help them with that the construction process will begin. During this time is when the original idea will be tweaked and sometimes changes completely from the original vision. Many of our clients now use different designers to create the look they are going for. In the beginning we tried to stay away from someone else being involved with the creative process and wanted to keep it all in house. The reason for that was designers would create these amazing concepts that had color fades, gradients, and multiple layers of colors. We would look at many of these and would be thinking that this concept is amazing but we can’t do the gradients, fades and multiple layers. Technology with fabrics have advanced now and we can do fades and gradients to an extent in house. Multiple layers can still be tricky because if your not careful it will restrict the stretch of the base fabric. Now, we welcome concepts from other designers and typically will have one individual that we prefer to work with and send everyone that we can his way. Jonathan Davenport is who anyone needs to have design their gear, he’s on top of his game and delivers each and every time! I don’t know that we have just one single piece of work that we are most proud of. We put so much into what we create for each and everyone we create for whether or not your the main event on WrestleMania or jerking the curtain at your local show on a Saturday night. We can say that most of the time anything designed for New Day or Gargano we step back once finished and pride our self in what we have done. We’ve been lucky to have my sister LeAnn on board and when she works on the women’s gear we are always wowed by what she creates. The one thing we would want potential clients to know is that your getting what you’ve paid for and more. We don’t rush orders out the door just to make a quick buck. The process from ordering to receiving may be a little longer than you desire but it is very rare for anyone to not be pleased with the final product.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met Patrick through wrestling on the Alabama independents. His ring name at the time was Zero-X and that’s how I knew him for awhile. One night I received a phone call from a mutual friend telling me that Patrick was down on his luck and was struggling with a lot going on in his life. I asked them what did they want me to do? I wasn’t being a jerk or mean about them asking me, I literally knew nothing about him or struggles. The friend on the other end of the line just asked if I would talk to him. I called him and we talked for awhile and he had shared what was going on in his life and that he had moved out of his parents house. He was living pretty much with whatever friend that would let him have a couch for the night. I eventually told Patrick that I would talk to my fiance at the time about him moving in with us since we had a spare room he could use. He moved in with us which was probably 2002 and now here we are.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When we first started this journey we had bought a used sewing machine from another gear maker at the time. As I think of it the first 3 machines we bought were all used and from the same person. Patrick would draw all the designs and cut them out back then. When he had them drawn and cut he would pass them to me and I would stitch them to the gear. So our “shop” which was the corner of the kitchen in a small two bedroom mobile home only consisted of a older Singer sewing machine, a four foot wooden table and a light box my late uncle had made for me. Back in these days we didn’t the machines that we use now to create the designs that many will see on the outfits we create today. Everything we created in those days was all hand traced and cut. We look back at that time and can’t really believe that we did what we did then with just a pencil, scissors and a light box.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.maineventgear.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/maineventgear/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/MainEventGear
• Twitter: @Main Event Gear