Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Evolve Championship
Former professional wrestling championship From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
The Evolve Championship was a men's professional wrestling championship that was created and promoted by the American promotion Evolve. The inaugural champion was A. R. Fox and the final champion was Josh Briggs. There were 10 reigns among 10 different wrestlers. The championship was deactivated on July 2, 2020, after WWE acquired the promotion.
In May 2025, two months after the relaunch of Evolve as a WWE brand division, a new WWE Evolve Championship was created, but it does not retain the lineage of the original Evolve Championship.
Remove ads
History
Summarize
Perspective
.jpg)
Origin
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.[5][6] Originally, Evolve had no championships, instead putting emphasis on each wrestler's win–loss record.[7] 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.[8] However, on September 8, 2012, Evolve announced that the promotion would be introducing its first own title, the Evolve Championship.[1] A. R. Fox defeated defeated Sami Callihan in the finals of an eight-man tournament on April 5, 2013, to become the inaugural champion.
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.[9][10] 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,[11][12] the promotion mainly continued referring to the title as simply the Evolve Championship.[13][14][15][16] 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.[17] During the subsequent Timothy Thatcher title reign, the title was also defended three times in Germany for Westside Xtreme Wrestling.[18] 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[19] and DGUSA and on a EVOLVE/WWN crossover event with Progress Wrestling.[19]
The Evolve Championship was deactivated in July 2, 2020, after WWE acquired Evolve and ceased operations.
WWE revival
In January 2025, it was reported that WWE were planning to revive Evolve as a brand.[20] At Royal Rumble on February 1, WWE announced that Evolve would premiere on Tubi on March 5 in the United States and on YouTube internationally.[21] On the May 7 episode of Evolve, Evolve Prime Minister Stevie Turner announced the creation of the WWE Evolve Championship and the WWE Evolve Women's Championship; the men's title does not retain the lineage of the original championship.[22]
Remove ads
Tournaments
Summarize
Perspective
Inaugural tournament
On February 8, 2013, Evolve announced that the inaugural Evolve Champion would be determined in a single-elimination tournament on April 5, 2013.[7] 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.[23] 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.[23] 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.[24] In the semifinals, both the number one and number two seeds were eliminated, when Callihan submitted Chuck Taylor and Fox pinned Ricochet.[24] In the end, Fox pinned Callihan in the finals to win the tournament and become the inaugural Evolve Champion.[24]
| First round | Semifinals | Finals | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Chuck Taylor | Sub | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | 8:37[25] | ||||||||||||
| 5 6 8 | Rich Swann Samuray del Sol Jigsaw | Sub | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | [25] | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Sami Callihan | Pin | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | 19:11[25] | ||||||||||||
| 2 | Ricochet | Pin | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | 12:54[25] | ||||||||||||
| 3 | A. R. Fox | DQ | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Jon Davis | [25] | ||||||||||||
Remove ads
Title history
Names
Reigns
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads