Promotion Evolve
Dragon Gate USA Current champion(s) Zack Sabre Jr. First champion(s) AR Fox | Date established September 8, 2012 Date won February 25, 2017 | |
 | ||
Longest reign Timothy Thatcher (596 days) | ||
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.
Contents
Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won as a result of a scripted match. There have been five reigns shared among five wrestlers. Zack Sabre Jr. is the current champion in his first reign.
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. Originally, Evolve had no championships, instead putting emphasis on each wrestler's win/loss record. 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. However, on September 8, 2012, Evolve announced that the promotion would be introducing its first own title, the Evolve Championship. 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. Following multiple successful international championship defenses by Galloway, he dubbed the title the Evolve World Championship on January 9, 2015, at Evolve 36. However, with some exceptions, the promotion mainly continued referring to the title as simply the Evolve Championship. During Galloway's record-breaking reign, the title was defended internationally in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Australia. During the subsequent Timothy Thatcher title reign, the title was also defended in Germany. Thatcher went on to break Galloway's record for the longest reign in the title's history, holding it for 596 days, before losing it to Zack Sabre Jr. on February 25, 2017.
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. 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. 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. 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. In the semifinals, both the number one and number two seeds were eliminated, when Callihan submitted Chuck Taylor and Fox pinned Ricochet. In the end, Fox pinned Callihan in the finals to win the tournament and become the inaugural Evolve Champion.