Early years and training Markopoulos grew up in
Hudson, Massachusetts. He graduated from
Hudson High School in 2012. The summer after seventh grade, at the age of 13, he decided to begin
professional wrestling training. In 2007 he began training at the
Killer Kowalski School of Wrestling Elia has been a standout performer in his area since 2009. Before taking on his Chaotic Wrestling alias of Elia Markopoulos, he was known as
The Masked Vortex and
Evan Young. In late 2009, after winning the New England Championship with the help of Alex Arion, Elias started teamed up with Arion, a long-time
heel in New England. The duo dubbed themselves the Greek Squad. The
babyface team failed to capture the Chaotic Wrestling Tag Team Championship numerous times, causing Elia to turn heel on Arion in late 2011. The former tag partners then had a match at Cold Fury 10 in 2012, with Arion leaving victorious. Later in 2012, after Arion had been taken out due to injury by Elia, Markopoulos joined forces with Frankie Arion (Alex's
kayfabe brother) and named themselves the Greek Squad. In August 2012 Arion returned and ultimately joined the heel faction again, though this time with Elia as the leader. On the June 15, 2012, episode of
WWE Smackdown, under the ring name Ari Cohen, Elias competed on
WWE television. Elias tagged with Mike Testa, losing in a
handicap match to
Ryback. On January 18, 2013, at Chaotic's first event of the year, Elias returned after a three-month hiatus and defeated Mark Shurman, and joined Sean Gorman's empire along with his former trainer Todd Hansen. At Cold Fury 12, on March 1, 2013, Elias captured the vacant Chaotic Wrestling New England Championship in a four-way match, winning the championship for the second time in his career. He later vacated the title in early June 2013. On August 28, 2013, Markopoulos made his
Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) debut as a heel in a dark match losing to Dylan Bostic. A few months after starting a friendly heel versus heel feud with Bostic, the two ended the feud and began teaming together due to their cheating and lying antics. Markopoulos was waived from his TNA contract in June 2015. ==Championships and accomplishments==