| Evolve Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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 Austin Theory with the Evolve Championship in March 2019. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Details | |||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | Evolve | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | September 8, 2012 [1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date retired | July 2, 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Other name(s) | |||||||||||||||||||
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The Evolve Championship was a professional wrestling championship owned by the Evolve promotion. The inaugural champion was crowned on April 5, 2013, when A. R. Fox defeated Sami Callihan in the finals of an eight-man tournament. [3]
There have been ten reigns shared among ten wrestlers.
Evolve was founded in 2009 by Dragon Gate USA booker Gabe Sapolsky, Full Impact Pro (FIP) owner Sal Hamaoui and independent wrestler Davey Richards and held its first event on January 16, 2010. [6] [7] Originally, Evolve had no championships, instead putting emphasis on each wrestler's win–loss record. [8] On November 25, 2011, Evolve and Dragon Gate USA announced the unification of the two promotions, which would result in Evolve recognizing the Open the Freedom Gate and Open the United Gate Championships as its top two titles. [9] However, on September 8, 2012, Evolve announced that the promotion would be introducing its first own title, the Evolve Championship. [1] The title was defended outside of the United States for the first time on August 29, 2014, when champion Drew Galloway retained against Johnny Moss at an event in Kilmarnock, Scotland and then again the following day when Galloway defeated Andy Wild in a Battle of the Nations match in Aberdeen, Scotland. [10] [11] Following multiple successful international championship defenses by Galloway, he dubbed the title the "Evolve World Championship" on January 9, 2015, at Evolve 36. [2] However, with some exceptions, [12] [13] the promotion mainly continued referring to the title as simply the Evolve Championship. [14] [15] [16] [17]
During Galloway's record-breaking reign, the title was defended internationally in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Australia for promotions such as Revolution Pro Wrestling, British Championship Wrestling, WrestleZone, Rock N Wrestle, Future Pro Wrestling, Outback Championship Wrestling, Premier British Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Ulster. [18] During the subsequent Timothy Thatcher title reign, the title was also defended three times in Germany for Westside Xtreme Wrestling. [19]
The title was also defended outside of EVOLVE for US independent promotions, including Premiere Wrestling Xperience, Big Time Wrestling, Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment, MAGNUM Pro Wrestling, WWNLive, Pro Wrestling Force [20] and DGUSA and on a EVOLVE/WWN crossover event with Progress Wrestling. [21]
On February 8, 2013, Evolve announced that the inaugural Evolve Champion would be determined in a single-elimination tournament on April 5, 2013. [8] Based on their win–loss records, number one seed Chuck Taylor and number two seed Ricochet earned automatic spots in the semifinals of the tournament, while number three and four seeds A. R. Fox and Jon Davis earned spots in the first round of the tournament. [22] The second first round match was a four-way match made up of Rich Swann, Samuray del Sol, Sami Callihan and Jigsaw, seeds five to eight, respectively. [22] The entire tournament took place during the Evolve 19 internet pay-per-view (iPPV) in Secaucus, New Jersey. In their first round matches, A. R. Fox advanced with a disqualification win over Jon Davis, while Sami Callihan submitted Samuray del Sol to win the four-way match. [3] In the semifinals, both the number one and number two seeds were eliminated, when Callihan submitted Chuck Taylor and Fox pinned Ricochet. [3] In the end, Fox pinned Callihan in the finals to win the tournament and become the inaugural Evolve Champion. [3]
| First round | Semifinals | Finals | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Chuck Taylor | Sub | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | 8:37 [23] | ||||||||||||
| 5 6 8 | Rich Swann Samuray del Sol Jigsaw | Sub | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | [23] | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | Pin | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | 19:11 [23] | ||||||||||||
| 2 | Ricochet | Pin | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | 12:54 [23] | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | DQ | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Jon Davis | [23] | ||||||||||||
| Name | Years |
|---|---|
| Evolve Championship | April 2013 – July 2020 |
| Evolve World Championship | January 2015, sporadically |
| No. | Overall reign number |
|---|---|
| Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
| Days | Number of days held |
| Defenses | Number of successful defenses |
| No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | Defenses | ||||
| 1 | A. R. Fox | April 5, 2013 | Evolve 19 | Secaucus, NJ | 1 | 324 | 8 | Fox defeated Sami Callihan in the finals of an eight-man tournament to become the inaugural champion. | [3] |
| 2 | Chris Hero | February 23, 2014 | Way of the Ronin 2014 | Brooklyn, NY | 1 | 166 | 2 | [24] | |
| 3 | Drew Galloway | August 8, 2014 | Evolve 31 | Tampa, FL | 1 | 336 | 20 | Title sporadically referred to as the "Evolve World Championship" during this reign | [25] |
| 4 | Timothy Thatcher | July 10, 2015 | Evolve 45 | Tampa, FL | 1 | 596 | 22 | This match was also contested for the Open the Freedom Gate Championship. | [26] |
| 5 | Zack Sabre Jr. | February 25, 2017 | Evolve 79 | New York City, NY | 1 | 404 | 13 | [27] | |
| 6 | Matt Riddle | April 5, 2018 | Evolve 102 | Kenner, LA | 1 | 121 | 5 | [28] [29] | |
| 7 | Shane Strickland | August 4, 2018 | Evolve 108 | Philadelphia, PA | 1 | 85 | 2 | [30] | |
| 8 | Fabian Aichner | October 28, 2018 | Evolve 114 | Ybor City, FL | 1 | 48 | 1 | [31] | |
| 9 | Austin Theory | December 15, 2018 | Evolve 117 | New York City, NY | 1 | 329 | 12 | This was a three-way match, also including Roderick Strong. | [32] |
| 10 | Josh Briggs | November 9, 2019 | Evolve 139 | New York City, NY | 1 | 236 | 3 | [33] | |
| — | Deactivated | July 2, 2020 | — | — | — | — | — | Deactivated when Evolve ceased operations. | |
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