I'm hoping Davey Richards won't come to the ring playing bagpipes.

(Eric beat me to talking about this promotion. I do like Davey Richards as a super dick head heel because he just comes off that way without him speaking. I have no idea the shenanigans that Gabe usually pulls because of my limited viewing of ROH. Having to throw money down a hole on cigarettes for your waste of space ex-wife smokes puts a dent in your spending of money on wrestling DVDs.)

In a recent development, Gabe Sapolsky, Davey Richards and Sal Hamaoui have started up a new wrestling promotion called Evolve. I missed Gabe’s post on MySpace but did catch the story on Prowrestling.net. They did put out a video to go along with this announcement but there isn’t much to it. Normally we try be be condescending, as negative as possible and generally make fun of someone or thing in wrestling but I’m actually going to do some serious analysis for a change.

I have been yapping about how wrestling needs to become more like sports (Just listen to our last two shows here and here) and even though Evolve has only posted some limited rules on their proposed point system for wrestlers, they’re headed in that direction.  Let’s go through these rules:

“1. Official Singles Division: These wrestlers will concentrate on singles matches. All bouts between official wrestlers will count towards their record. Competitors become “official” either by invitation from the EVOLVE board of directors or by winning a qualifying match.”

I’ll comment on the qualifying matches which are covered under note #3. I love the idea of keeping single’s wrestlers in a separate idea. I’ve never liked the idea of a super team even if Jerishow did make the belts relevant for a couple of months in the WWE. The majority of us are tired of seeing guys team up for a tag match simply because they’re feuding with their opponents for the evening. This idea should limit or down right eliminate this crutch that is used. The fleshing out area will come in how they use the record. Will it be just a win/loss record? Will there be points for different types of victories? Speed of a victory? As I said at the top of the article, they have a lot of fleshing out to do.

“2. Official Tag Team Division: Tag teams become “official” either by invitation from the EVOLVE board of directors or by winning a qualifying match. An official team must register as a regular tag team. There will be no makeshift or random tag teams in EVOLVE. A trio can register as a tag team and select two competitors for a match. The trio can also compete in six man tag matches. All matches between official teams will count towards their record. That means that both regular and six man tag team matches can count towards records. Note: Substitutions can be made in the event of injury to prevent wrestlers to have to rush back from injury.”

Not much more I can add from the single’s division analysis.

“3. Qualifying Match: This can be any type of bout, including , but not limited to multi-man matches such as four-ways or various types of tag team bouts. A qualifying match will include competitors trying to earn their way into one of the official divisions. The results of this match will not count towards records.”

Does that mean that only various types of matches will be used for qualifying matches? That idea seems really bad to me but that’s the way they worded their rules. I hope that isn’t the case as it will make qualifying matches more interesting than main event matches.  The fact that results of the match won’t count towards the record is an interesting point. Any established wrestler who is in a qualifying match has a downside because they can’t gain points from a win and an upside because if they do lose, they don’t lose points. They would look bad though if a wrestlers qualifies over them ends up being a terrible wrestler although the standings should work out any bugs similar to that situation.

For the qualifying competitors, not getting an immediate boost in the standings has some downside. I do wonder though if you lose a qualifying match if you are allowed more than one.  If they are allowed multiple contests, they are at an advantage so long as they can keep picking themselves up off the mat for another chance. They could also be screwed if they’re in a multiple person match because they could not get pinned or submitted yet still not qualify. Again, I have lots of questions so they have to work out the wrinkles. -Kevin