AEW’s women’s division has never been so strong, which makes speculating on who will be the inaugural AEW Women’s World Tag Team champions fun. Various creative options optimistically hint at a strong future for the championship. There are plenty of long-time tag partners, recent pairings, and potential unique odd couple tandems to choose from.
We’re not going to discuss the benefits of the new belts or why it’s finally time for their introduction, but feel free to check out my colleague’s thoughts on the links provided. Instead, we’ll examine the pros and cons of who will hold the gold first.
Spoiler: Regardless of who gets the belts first, the creative potential for their successors means the new championship could have a strong and story-rich lineage.
Honorable Mentions: The CEO/Forever Champion and Co
If there’s a tournament, Mercedes Mone and Athena, as uneasy partners or competing with a lackey or minion sidekick, would be stronger as participants rather than the inaugural champions. If Mone won the tag titles, the central issue of the belt-collecting gimmick, that one title above all others is the centerpiece, could leave the new championships looking as secondary decoration.
Using the tournament to set up new alliances or revisit simmering or paused feuds would serve their individual and ongoing storylines and character arcs. If Athena and Mone teamed, an eventual breakdown would set up a much-wanted rematch.
If Athena teamed with Billie Starkz, AEW could use a defeat to build towards Starkz’s usurpation of the ROH Women’s World champion.
Wildcard Option – Outsider Champions
Usually, an AEW tournament features a wildcard. Ordinarily, these wildcards are international wrestlers from one of AEW’s partner promotions. Frequently, they arrive, impress, and are eliminated. What if AEW subverted this trope? What if CMLL’s Persephone and La Catalina, or one of Stardom’s Neo Genesis tandems, went all the way?
Pros:
Subversion would redefine three aspects of AEW’s booking. First, restoring unpredictability to the wildcard trope. Second, it would also see one of AEW’s major championships (sorry, ROH) travel to another promotion. Third, optically, AEW trusting a partnership promotion would further differentiate them from WWE. Also, it could allow for various promotional possibilities and open the door for more dual contract signings.
Creatively, there’s a larger story about AEW homegrown wrestlers facing their international counterparts. The victorious team, in reclaiming the belts, would achieve its own slice of history.
Cons:
Taking that historic achievement away from AEW’s homegrown talent would be counterintuitive. AEW’s women have spilled blood, sweat, and tears to make these belts possible. Initially exporting them to Japan or Mexico would also risk repetition of the early history of the AEW Women’s World Championship. Later, the idea could happen, but not as a starting point.
“Timeless” Toni Storm and A Dance Partner
The former four-time AEW Women’s World Champion, “Timeless” Toni Storm, has plenty of potential dance partners to tango with and claim the new tag titles.
Pros:
Storm is a star, demanding screen time and a spotlight. Her presence, character, and fan support could sprinkle some magic on the newly created championships. Anything associated with her will be treated creatively with care.
Whether with Mina Shirakawa, who can match Storm’s energy, or a complementary foil like Alex Windsor or Thunder Rosa, each option has unique chemistry. There’s scope to do more sapphic representation. Even a storyline with the left-out partner, watching from the sidelines, perhaps eventually seeks revenge, has potential. That’s without even discussing how, in the ring, any of those three combinations would kick ass.
Cons:
Does Storm need a championship belt? Storm, holding another championship so soon after losing the AEW Women’s World Championship, dances with repetition; an overreliance/overexposure of Storm’s star power and creative stagnation. Seeing Storm without the championship and how she adapts is more interesting.
Harley Cameron and A Foil
Repeatedly maximizing her minutes, Harley Cameron has teamed at some point with most of AEW’s female faces this year. And Mercedes Mone. Recently, Cameron has served as the sometimes-exasperating voice of reason to AEW Women’s World Champion Kris Statlander. Alternatively, pairing Cameron’s comedy with another infectiously bubbly personality like Willow Nightingale could make hearts swell.
Pros
Rewarding Cameron with a championship victory would be more than a feel-good moment. It would also be another clear sign to AEW wrestlers and fans that those who step up in the “no floaties” structure are rewarded. The same would be true for a potential partner like Nightingale or Statlander as a double champion.
The best tag teams are stronger together than the sum of their parts. Cameron is a phenomenal character, but is still developing as a wrestler. Teaming with a veteran would allow Cameron more learning opportunities.
We might get Cameron challenging Brodido to a winner-takes-all match.
Cons
Cameron’s chemistry with most of the division has made her the Orange Cassidy of the division. Whilst Cameron would be outstanding with any partner, there are stronger potential pairings to be the inaugural tag team champions who have been a consistent, long-term tag team and deserve the accolade more.
Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford
Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford have a clear dynamic and roles. The Greek Goddess and her disciple are attention-holding, with recent social media posts humorously emphasizing each woman’s (particularly Bayne’s physical strength. They are fan-favorites despite being heels.
Pros
A legitimate, long-standing tag team, it would not be surprising to see the pairing hold the gold first. Fans have been waiting for Bayne to be draped in gold. It would also delay the always inevitable concern that, like all “monsters”, they eventually become normalized.
Cons
Without strong creative plans, there’s a risk that rather than elevating or sustaining Bayne as a monster, the belt exposes the Megasus’s booking. AEW’s “no floaties” philosophy means that protective booking is eventually exposed. See the FTW Championship reign of HOOK, or Jade Cargill TBS Champions run, where the protective, functional booking paradoxically erodes a wrestler’s aura.
TayJay
Tay Melo and Anna Jay are the longest-serving tag duo in AEW’s women’s division. These women pushed the division forward by normalizing hardcore, plunder-brawls, and showing that fans were willing to invest in hardcore women’s action and blood.
A sentimental favorite pairing, you must wonder if AEW has foreshadowed their victory after an interview about the new tag championships, but let’s check the scales.
Pros
Multiple layers of story would accompany TayJay’s feel-good victory. Besides their collective and individual histories in the division, the duo best exemplifies the philosophy of tag team wrestling. Together, they truly are greater than the sum of their parts. This allows for a natural but straightforward and fitting storyline for the division.
They are better together.
Their story of friendship is organic and real. Spotlighted and developed effectively as underdog champions, the pair could win hearts and minds if AEW creative invested.
Cons:
TayJay could be underwhelming champions if their booking fails to learn from history. Presently, Jay and Melo are middling acts in the division. Individually, they have been pin-eaters for most of 2025.
Their booking this year doesn’t naturally reflect championship material. Other women’s wrestlers have more fan investment, have more defined characters, and are stronger in the ring.
Good creative effort, care, and attention with well-thought-out storylines would ease these setbacks. However, looking at the historic booking of the men’s tag division. Consider Private Party’s mechanical and half-hearted AEW World Tag Team Championship reign as an example of a worst-case scenario. That’s without considering the spotlight issues of the women’s division.
It’s fair to question if AEW would have the patience to invest in TayJay.
The Triangle of Madness
Perennial fan-favorites, Julia Hart and Skye Blue, have found a clear purpose and direction with Thekla. A coven-like brood of bad-ass witches, the trio has made themselves a strong and impressive force in the women’s division.
Pros
Hart and Skye winning the championship would give credibility to the recently formed trio. Holding the gold makes them more of a threat as a heel force, making them a bigger obstacle in the division.
That association with Thekla would grant them more TV time and storyline opportunities. Compared to TayJay, another young, homegrown tandem, the Sisters of Sin are more established as consistent weekly features of Dynamite and Collision.
Cons
Skye and Hart have been positioned as the two bottom corners of the triangle, holding Thekla up. At times, they have been bodies, there to protect the Toxic Spider and eat pins against Thekla’s opponents, like Jamie Hayter or Storm.
As champions, if that dynamic did not change, it risks diminishing the women’s tag division, either by the titles playing a secondary role. Seeing tag champions lose in singles matches would undermine the tag division’s top prize. The easiest alternative, beyond adding additional members to the triangle, expanding it to a quadrilateral or a pentagon, would be to change the group dynamic.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
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