Evolve Championship

Evolve Championship

AR Fox, the inaugural Evolve Champion
Details
Promotion Evolve
Dragon Gate USA
Date established September 8, 2012[1]
Current champion(s) Timothy Thatcher
Date won July 10, 2015[2]
Other name(s)
Evolve World Championship[3]

The Evolve Championship is a professional wrestling championship owned by the Evolve promotion. The inaugural champion was crowned on April 5, 2013, when AR Fox defeated Sami Callihan in the finals of an eight-man tournament.[4]

Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won as a result of a scripted match. There have been four reigns shared among four wrestlers. Timothy Thatcher is the current champion in his first reign.[2]

History

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.[7][8] Originally, Evolve had no championships, instead putting emphasis on each wrestler's win/loss record.[9] 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.[10] 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 a British Championship Wrestling (BCW) event in Kilmarnock, Scotland.[11] Following multiple successful international championship defenses by Galloway, he dubbed the title the Evolve World Championship on January 9, 2015, at Evolve 36.[3] 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.[18] During the subsequent Timothy Thatcher title reign, the title was also defended in Germany.[19]

Championship tournament

On February 8, 2013, Evolve announced that the inaugural Evolve Champion would be determined in a single-elimination tournament on April 5, 2013.[9] 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 AR Fox and Jon Davis earned spots in the first round of the tournament.[20] 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.[20] The entire tournament took place during the Evolve 19 internet pay-per-view (iPPV) in Secaucus, New Jersey. In their first round matches, AR Fox advanced with a disqualification win over Jon Davis, while Sami Callihan submitted Samuray del Sol to win the four-way match.[4] In the semifinals, both the number one and number two seeds were eliminated, when Callihan submitted Chuck Taylor and Fox pinned Ricochet.[4] In the end, Fox pinned Callihan in the finals to win the tournament and become the inaugural Evolve Champion.[4]

  First round Semifinals Finals
                           
   
  1  Chuck Taylor Sub  
    7  Sami Callihan 8:37[21]  
5
6
8		  Rich Swann
Samuray del Sol
Jigsaw		 Sub
  7  Sami Callihan [21]  
    7  Sami Callihan Pin
  3  AR Fox 19:11[21]
     
   
2  Ricochet Pin
    3  AR Fox 12:54[21]  
3  AR Fox DQ
  4  Jon Davis [21]  

Title history

Names

Name Years
Evolve Championship April 2013 – present
Evolve World Championship January 2015, sporadically

Reigns

# Order in reign history
Reign The reign number for the specific wrestler listed
Event The event promoted by the respective promotion in which the title was won
— Used for vacated reigns so as not to count it as an official reign
+ Indicates the current reign is changing daily
# Wrestler Reign Date Days
held		 Location Event Notes Ref(s)
1 AR Fox 1 April 5, 2013 324 Secaucus, New Jersey Evolve 19 Fox defeated Sami Callihan in the finals of an eight-man tournament to become the inaugural champion. [4]
2 Chris Hero 1 February 23, 2014 166 Brooklyn, New York Way of the Ronin 2014 [22]
3 Drew Galloway 1 August 8, 2014 336 Tampa, Florida Evolve 31 Title sporadically referred to as the "Evolve World Championship" during this reign. [23]
4 Timothy Thatcher 1 July 10, 2015 514+ Tampa, Florida Evolve 45 This match was also contested for the Open the Freedom Gate Championship. [2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Radican, Sean (September 8, 2012). "Radican's Evolve 17 iPPV report - Virtual time coverage from Voorhees, N.J.". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Radican, Sean (July 10, 2015). "Radican's Evolve 45 iPPV report 7/10: WWNLive blows up the card & delivers huge main event title match - Galloway vs. Thatcher, Strong vs. Sabre, Jr., Chris Hero, So Cal Val's faction, more". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Trionfo, Richard (January 9, 2015). "Evolve 36 report: Strong versus Galloway; Gargano faces a swerve; Ronin returns tomorrow night; and more". Pro Wrestling Insider. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Radican, Sean (April 9, 2013). "Radican's Evolve 19 iPPV blog 4/5: First Evolve champion crowned in Tournament Finals, Young Bucks vs. SSB (Updated w/complete review)". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Drew McIntyre". WWE. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2014.
  6. ↑ "'The People's Choice' A.R. Fox". Combat Zone Wrestling. Archived from the original on May 31, 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  7. ↑ Mehaffy, Gary (November 9, 2009). "Gabe Sapolsky interview on Dragon Gate, Evolve". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  8. ↑ Radican, Sean (February 16, 2010). "Radican's Evolve DVD Review Series: Evolve 1 - Richards vs. Ibushi, Sawa vs. TJP". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  9. 1 2 Caldwell, James (February 8, 2013). "Evolve News: Evolve Title tourney seeds, plus fundamental changes to the promotion announced". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Evolve evolves -- now unified with DGUSA". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. November 25, 2011. Archived from the original on November 28, 2011. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  11. ↑ "9.03.14". WWNLive. September 3, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  12. ↑ "3.23.15". WWNLive. March 23, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  13. ↑ "3.26.15". WWNLive. March 26, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  14. ↑ "3.10.15". WWNLive. March 10, 2015. Retrieved July 12, 2015.
  15. ↑ "5.27.15". WWNLive. March 10, 2015. Retrieved July 12, 2015.
  16. ↑ "7.10.15". WWNLive. March 10, 2015. Retrieved July 12, 2015.
  17. ↑ "8.16.15". WWNLive. August 16, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Evolve Championship". Cagematch. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
  19. ↑ "wXw Shotgun Live Tour 2016: Hamburg". Cagematch. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  20. 1 2 Caldwell, James (February 8, 2013). "Evolve News: Full Evolve Title tournament announced". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 "Evolve #19: Title Tournament". Internet Wrestling Database. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  22. ↑ Gee Schoon Tong, Chris (February 23, 2014). "Show results - 2/23 DGUSA in New York: New Evolve champion, Gargano defends DGUSA Title, more". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  23. ↑ Radican, Sean (August 8, 2014). "Radican's iPPV report - Evolve 31 in Ybor City, Fla.: Galloway/McIntyre captures Evolve Title from Hero, plus Sydal/Bourne vs. Gargano". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved August 9, 2014.

External links

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