Catch Wrestling Crowned Its First Women's Champion

Season 2 is the expansion year. The Vegas 2026 tournament took the Season 1 format - which was just men's singles - and added two new pillars under the same umbrella. The show itself is billed as hosting the under 80kg division, over 80kg division, Tag Team, and the first-ever women's Shoot Pro Wrestling championship, co-hosted by you and Pat Miletich, and the full finals are up free. 

For the women, this is the first time anyone has run a women's title under Karl Gotch rules. You kept the Madison System that Catch Pro Wrestling has used before - no formal weight classes for women, competitors matched closest to weight until the pool is big enough to split divisions. In the Vegas cut the structure is laid out clearly in the timestamps: First Ever Women's Division Match at 1:35:40 and then the Women's Championship Match in the championship block at 2:34:00. Same rules as the men, same pressure to finish. 

Tag teams came in at the same event. The Tag Team Tournament starts at 2:19:15 right before the championship block. It's positioned as a deliberate historical nod - Josh Leduc, who won the inaugural belts, framed it as another innovation, another homage to catch-as-catch-can. Catch historically had a lot of tag work to break up long technical grinds, so bringing it back under competitive rules makes sense.

And it's all still the King of Catch rule set you co-developed with Gotch. That lineage is noted on Wikipedia too - a rules system devised by Karl Gotch for Jake Shannon's "King of Catch" tournaments and carried forward as "Our events use The King of Catch sanctioned rules that were co-developed by Jake Shannon and Karl Gotch".

In practice that means pinfalls, submissions, and rope escapes lead to the championship matchups. All submissions are allowed except the fouls - no intentional striking, kicking, biting, eye gouging, groin attacks, fish hooking, no single finger or toe attacks. A rope break or out-of-bounds gets one warning, then you get put back in the same position or in a bottom high-defense in the middle, and in championship matches the second infraction costs a point. If there's no finish, it goes to sudden death - first pin, submission, or point-loss wins. That's what makes the women's and tag titles feel different from regular BJJ or submission-only - you can't just flop to your back, you have to deal with pins the whole time.