If Monday night Raw was any indication, WWE’s Women’s Tag Team Championship Division could be about to enjoy its greatest chapter yet.
What do Rhea Ripley, IYO SKY, Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Bayley, Lyra Valkyria, Raquel Rodriguez, Roxanne Perez, Asuka, and Kairi Sane all have in common? They are all former women’s champions in either SmackDown, Raw, or NXT. They are all also currently fighting over the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.
Brief History of WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Division
WWE’s women’s tag team division has been up and down since the company first introduced the belts in 2019. Over the last seven years, there have been just 33 champions (and two vacancies) as reigns were often lengthy due to the titles not always being featured or defended or short due to hot potato’ing. The inclusion of NXT teams hasn’t added the boost that was expected and overall, it just seems the titles have struggled to stay relevant despite their hot start with pandemic all-stars, Bayley and Sasha Banks. The titles were defended on PLEs eight times that first year after being first decided inside the Elimination Chamber. Four titles defenses in each in 2020 and 2021 followed.
Between 2022 – 23 however, they were defended on PLEs a total of just three times. Not among those PLEs was WrestleMania in 2023, which marked the first of two straight years the titles didn’t factor onto the now two night card. While not defended at WrestleMania in 2024, that year brought the titles back into focus as longer reigns by the Kabuki Warriors (five defenses in 99 days), Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair (9 title defenses across two reigns totaling 146 days), and the Unholy Union (4 defenses across 77 days) added some stability and excitement to the division. The titles were also front and center of one of WWE’s biggest storylines that carried over through 2025, Naomi attacking Cargill and taking her place as Belair’s tag team partner.
2024 seemed to mark the first time since before the pandemic that WWE was invested real storyline resources and capital into the women’s tag belts but unfortunately, it was short-lived. After Naomi and Belair lost the titles in February 2025, the belts seemed to disappear. Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez returned them to prominence a few months later at WrestleMania, dropping them to a returning Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria only for Lynch to turn on Valkyria when they dropped the titles back to Morgan and Rodriguez the next day. In all, Rodriguez would hold the titles three times in 2025 setting the record as the winningest women’s tag team champion with five total reigns. In 2025, she held the belts twice with Morgan and once with Roxanne Perez, who stepped in during Morgan’s injury. The storyline at that time was around Judgment Day holding all of the gold as Finn Balor and JD McDonagh were men’s tag team champions and Dominik Mysterio was in his first reign as Intercontinental Champion.
The angle with Judgment Day helped restore the women’s tag titles to TV in a visual sense but Rodriguez and Morgan/Perez only defended the titles six times across those three reigns, spanning a total of 158 days. It wasn’t until Judgment Day dropped the titles to Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, that the belts regained some relevance. Flair and Bliss’ journey from not liking each other and simply being allies of convenience to becoming best friends put the titles back in the spotlight and saw them defended six times over 100 days before the fairytale story came to an end at the hands of the Kabuki Warriors. Asuka and Kairi Sane have yet to defend the titles they won a month ago but despite that, the championships have become a major factor in Raw, SmackDown, and PLE storylines, with three of the division’s teams co-main eventing the Women’s Survivor Series War Games match. While the titles themselves weren’t defended on that card, their presence was felt – even if the main story coming out of War Games was less about the titles and more about the rivalry between Becky Lynch and AJ Lee. For the tag titles, everything came to a head on the 12/1 edition of Raw as the storyline around #1 contendership book-ended the show. What started as two teams staking their claim at the beginning of the night turned chaotic by the end as four teams of top stars all laid claim to being the first ones to challenge Asuka and Sane.
Former Singles Champions Add Much-Needed Boost to the Division
The WWE Women’s Tag Team Division has been at its best when there has been a compelling story thread driving it and not just the mishmash of random teams. The current landscape feels a little bit like the latter but when you dig deeper, WWE has allowed all of their makeshift teams the time to develop and get over with fans. Like Bliss and Flair, Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY were former rivals before a series of matches led to a growing mutual respect from the two former women’s champions. Bayley and Lyra Valkyria is a bit of a different story as Valkyria looks to (hopes to) trust her former partner despite the tension between Bayley’s inner voices. Then there is Perez and Rodriguez, who got the seal of approval from Liv Morgan as she looks to restore all of the gold and majesty to Judgment Day. WWE having a mixed gender stable where the female wrestler is arguably its leader and biggest star isn’t something you see everyday and couple that with Rodriguez and Perez running the tag division and it’s a great story thread to follow.
A year ago, none of those four teams were established but now, they are forces to be reckoned with inside a division that has been at a desperate need of starpower for some time. Fans have gotten behind them and that’s because WWE invested in storyline development and continuity. And not every story is the same. Flair/Bliss started as an enemy of my enemy team while Ripley/SKY was built out of mutual respect after many hard fought battles. Rodriguez was uneasy with Perez at first not wanting to replace Morgan but the two found a rhythm and some success as time went on. Bayley and Valkyria started as friends only to briefly become rivals and then back to friends…we think. And Asuka and Sane have history going back to Japan. Though they just recently reunited, they are fully in-sync three-time champions currently at the top of their game.
There has been storyline variance and reasons to rally behind these teams, which is something the division lacked for several years. Perhaps most importantly however, none of the women are viewing the tag titles as consolation prizes. Flair will go down as perhaps the most decorated women’s champion ever but right now, she’s fully focused on Bliss and regaining the titles. Ripley isn’t that far removed from being world champion herself but those aspirations are on hold as she teams with her best friend. Valkyria and Rodriguez were competing over the women’s intercontinental championship recently but that’s on the backburner now as they each look to become tag team champions again.
Now, is there a possibility WWE has overloaded the tag division in a way that will be detrimental to the singles scene? That remains to be seen but right now, WWE’s female champions are all rising stars in their own right. Chelsea Green is doing some of the best work of her career as Maxxine Dupri is only getting better by the day. Jade Cargill is getting her chance to shine as the woman on top alongside Stephanie Vaquer, who might be the company’s best women’s prospect ever recruited. Eventually, those divisions might need a Charlotte Flair or Rhea Ripley back in the mix, but for now they are in perfectly good hands. And that allows WWE to have more flexibility to have some of its best singles wrestlers, rejuvenating the tag team scene.
The next few weeks will be interesting as all four teams look to lay claim to first shot at Asuka and Sane, but it’s no matter what happens, its refreshing to know the women’s tag titles won’t be put in the rearview anytime soon.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – WWE – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.
You can check out WWE programming on Netflix (Raw), USA Network (SmackDown), The CW (NXT), Tubi (WWE Evolve), A&E (WWE Superstar Sunday – Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments) and Peacock (WWE Main Event as well as archives and premium live event streaming). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on YouTube, and catch fast-paced action on X (WWE Speed).
