The Evolve Tag Team Championship was a professional wrestling tag team championship owned by the Evolve promotion. The inaugural champions were crowned on January 24, 2016, at the end of an eight-team tournament.[3]
| Evolve Tag Team Championship | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jaka with one half of the titles in August 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Details | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | Evolve | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | November 10, 2015[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date retired | July 2, 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Like most professional wrestling championships, the title was won as a result of a scripted match. There have been 13 reigns shared among 12 teams and 21 wrestlers.
History
Evolve was founded in 2009 by Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA) booker Gabe Sapolsky, Full Impact Pro (FIP) owner Sal Hamaoui and independent wrestler Davey Richards and held its first event on January 16, 2010.[4][5] On November 25, 2011, Evolve and DGUSA 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.[6] On December 22, 2014, WWNLive, the parent company of both Evolve and DGUSA, announced it was putting DGUSA on hiatus until it could secure more Japanese wrestlers for the promotion's shows.[7] The Open the United Gate Championship continued being defended at Evolve shows until May 30, 2015, when reigning champions Johnny Gargano and Rich Swann retired the title and asked for a new Evolve tag team title to be created in its place.[8] On September 22, Evolve announced that it would start putting more emphasis on the promotion's tag team division and would create the new title, if the experiment turned out successful.[9] On November 10, 2015, Evolve sent out a press release, officially announcing the creation of the Evolve Tag Team Championship.[1]
Championship tournament
Evolve announced that the inaugural champions would be determined in a tournament taking place over Evolve 53, Evolve 54 and Evolve 55 from January 22 to 24, 2016, in Orlando, Florida.[1] The first three teams participating in the tournament were revealed in the press release announcing the creation of the title.[1] The rest of the teams were announced throughout the rest of November 2015 along with the clarification that the tournament would be contested in a single-elimination format with eight participating teams.[10][11] The first round matches were announced on January 19, 2016.[12] Timothy Thatcher was originally announced for the tournament, but he was forced to pull out due to a staph infection and was replaced by Sami Callihan.[13]
- Participating teams
- The Bravado Brothers (Harlem Bravado and Lancelot Bravado)
- Catch Point (Drew Gulak and T. J. Perkins)
- Heroes. Eventually. Die. (Chris Hero and Tommy End)
- Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano
- The Premier Athlete Brand (Anthony Nese and Caleb Konley)
- Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero and Trent Baretta)
- Sami Callihan and Zack Sabre Jr.
- Team Tremendous (Bill Carr and Dan Barry)
| First round (January 22) | Semifinals (January 23) | Finals (January 24) | ||||||||||||
| Callihan and Sabre | Pin | |||||||||||||
| Hero and End | [14] | |||||||||||||
| Hero and End | Pin | |||||||||||||
| Roppongi Vice | [15] | |||||||||||||
| Roppongi Vice | Pin | |||||||||||||
| Carr and Barry | [14] | |||||||||||||
| Hero and End | Sub | |||||||||||||
| Galloway and Gargano | [3] | |||||||||||||
| Nese and Konley | Pin | |||||||||||||
| The Bravado Brothers | [14] | |||||||||||||
| The Bravado Brothers | Sub | |||||||||||||
| Galloway and Gargano | [15] | |||||||||||||
| Galloway and Gargano | Pin | |||||||||||||
| Gulak and Perkins | [14] | |||||||||||||
Title history
| No. | Overall reign number |
|---|---|
| Reign | Reign number for the specific team—reign numbers for the individuals are in parentheses, if different |
| 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 | Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano | January 24, 2016 | Evolve 55 | Orlando, FL | 1 | 69 | 2 | Galloway and Gargano defeated Chris Hero and Tommy End in the finals of an eight-team tournament to become the inaugural champions. | [3] |
| 2 | Catch Point (Drew Gulak and Tracy Williams) | April 2, 2016 | Evolve 59 | Dallas, TX | 1 | 105 | 2 | [16] | |
| 3 | Drew Galloway (2) and Dustin | July 16, 2016 | Evolve 64 | New York City, NY | 1 | 120 | 1 | [17] | |
| 4 | Catch Point (Fred Yehi and Tracy Williams (2)) | November 13, 2016 | Evolve 73 | Joppa, MD | 1 | 160 | 3 | This was a four-way tag team elimination match, also involving Drew Gulak and Tony Nese, and The Gatekeepers (Blaster McMassive and Flex Rumblecrunch). Chris Hero replaced an injured Drew Galloway. | [18] |
| 5 | Catch Point (Chris Dickinson and Jaka) | April 22, 2017 | Evolve 82 | New York City, NY | 1 | 77 | 2 | [19] | |
| 6 | The Lethal Enforcers (Anthony Henry and JD Drake) | July 8, 2017 | Evolve 88 | Charlotte, NC | 1 | 76 | 3 | ||
| 7 | The Troll Boyz (A. C. H. and Ethan Page) | September 22, 2017 | Evolve 92 | Livonia, MI | 1 | 1 | 0 | [20] | |
| 8 | Doom Patrol (Chris Dickinson and Jaka) | September 23, 2017 | Evolve 93 | Summit, IL | 2 | 400 | 9 | Formerly known as Catch Point. | [21] |
| 9 | The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) | October 28, 2018 | Evolve 114 | Ybor City, FL | 1 | 138 | 6 | [22] | |
| 10 | The Unwanted (Eddie Kingston and Joe Gacy) | March 15, 2019 | Evolve 123 | Melrose, MA | 1 | 120 | 2 | [23] | |
| 11 | A. R. Fox and Leon Ruff | July 13, 2019 | Evolve 131 | Philadelphia, PA | 1 | 147 | 4 | [24] | |
| 12 | Besties in the World (Davey Vega and Mat Fitchett) | December 7, 2019 | Evolve 142 | Chicago, IL | 1 | 208 | 1 | [25] | |
| — | Deactivated | July 2, 2020 | — | — | — | — | — | Deactivated when Evolve ceased operations. | |
Combined reigns
| Rank | Team | No. of reigns | Combined defenses | Combined days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Catch Point/Doom Patrol (Jaka and Chris Dickinson) | 2 | 11 | 477 |
| 2 | Catch Point (Fred Yehi and Tracy Williams) | 1 | 3 | 160 |
| 3 | A. R. Fox and Leon Ruff | 4 | 147 | |
| 4 | The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) | 6 | 138 | |
| 5 | The Unwanted (Eddie Kingston and Joe Gacy) | 2 | 120 | |
| Drew Galloway and Dustin | 1 | 120 | ||
| 7 | Catch Point (Drew Gulak and Tracy Williams) | 2 | 105 | |
| 8 | The Lethal Enforcers (Anthony Henry and JD Drake) | 3 | 76 | |
| 9 | Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano | 2 | 69 | |
| 10 | Besties in the World (Davey Vega and Mat Fitchett) | 1 | 62 | |
| 11 | The Troll Boyz (A. C. H. and Ethan Page) | 0 | 1 |
By wrestler
| Rank | Wrestler | No. of reigns | Combined defenses | Combined days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chris Dickinson | 2 | 11 | 477 |
| Jaka | 11 | 477 | ||
| 3 | Tracy Williams | 5 | 265 | |
| 4 | Drew Galloway | 2 | 3 | 189 |
| 5 | Fred Yehi | 1 | 3 | 160 |
| 6 | A. R. Fox | 4 | 147 | |
| Leon Ruff | 4 | 147 | ||
| 8 | Angelo Dawkins | 6 | 138 | |
| Montez Ford | 6 | 138 | ||
| 10 | Eddie Kingston | 2 | 120 | |
| Joe Gacy | 2 | |||
| Dustin | 1 | |||
| 13 | Drew Gulak | 2 | 105 | |
| 14 | Anthony Henry | 3 | 76 | |
| JD Drake | 3 | 76 | ||
| 16 | Johnny Gargano | 2 | 69 | |
| 17 | Davey Vega | 1 | 62 | |
| Mat Fitchett | 1 | |||
| 19 | A. C. H. | 0 | 1 | |
| Ethan Page | 0 | 1 |