Grappler's Choice #20 - Mixed Tag Team & Women's Tag Team Championships

I have written about my desire to see women’s tag team championships in WWE before, but after some recent polls I put out on Twitter asking people if they’d like to see the mixed or women’s tag team belts, and then receiving positive responses in regards to this, I thought I would write about it again in greater detail. So here’s my thoughts on why WWE should consider introducing these titles.

Current rosters

So as I am writing this and checking this on (06/02/18), Raw currently has 11 female wrestlers (including Paige, as this is somewhat of a question mark in regards to whether or not she will be able to compete again in the future. I sincerely hope she will able to, but sources online seem to contrast greatly, with the majority stating that she’s either retired or simply unable to compete for the foreseeable future, whilst the rest seem to indicate that there may still be some potential for her to continue to wrestle. I think that either way she will still remain with WWE and be an on-air talent in some shape or form, so for that reason I have included her in this list). Smackdown Live also currently has 11 female wrestlers, and NXT has 12. I am glad that I checked this before writing this blog post, as I was happily surprised to see that there are more female talents wrestling in WWE than I originally thought.

Considering how many 6-8 woman tag matches there have been over the past few years, I think that the introduction of either mixed tag team or women’s tag team championships would be perfect titles to establish in the WWE simply because it would create greater competition between the female wrestlers (now having six titles instead of three available to pursue in the company, supposing that tag team championships were added to all three brands in WWE), and could potentially provide the basis for compelling story-lines in a newly formed women’s tag team division.

Women’s Tag Team championships

I can already see potential tag teams such as Sasha Banks & Bayley (with a logical feud following thereafter between the two, something which many fans have been clamoring to see for a long time, and this could provide the perfect basis for such a feud to occur, as they could become enemies for typical story-lines such as the failure to capture the belts, and then one of them blames the other etc) being perfect tag team combinations that challenge for the titles or to become strong champions.

I think it would also help greatly in terms of the continuation of this ‘‘Women’s Revolution’’ that the WWE is currently spearheading. A woman’s tag team division in my opinion would greatly increase the level of equality between male and female wrestlers in WWE, due to the mirroring nature of available titles in both divisions (i.e. the male and female championships available are identical).

Mixed Tag Team Championships

I personally feel that Mixed tag team belts would be an exciting prospect, however, I feel that it would be better to keep this ‘Mixed Match Challenge’ that WWE has recently been running as a yearly event, instead of introducing it as a regular format with an accompanying division and set of belts.

It’s for a good cause and it seems like a nice thing to look forward to every year as the rosters all change, and then disparate pairings become available. I am contradicting myself however, considering that this article title concerns mixed tag team and women’s tag team championships, and the potential of their introduction into WWE.

After giving it some thought I personally feel that the women’s tag team belts would be a much better addition to the company. However, as I stated before, I would still like to see the ‘Mixed Match Challenge’ return every year as I feel that it has a lot to offer in the way of fun chemistry between male and female wrestlers, the potential for exciting matches, together with, the novelty of seeing them wrestle together only once a year, for a good cause as well. On the other hand, I also think that this division benefits some of the male wrestlers within WWE who are perhaps not involved in story-lines when the ‘Mixed Match Challenge’ occurs. By showcasing these wrestlers, it might give them greater opportunities to win over audience and produce better matches.

The only way I could see mixed tag team championships becoming a possibility would be if women’s tag team championships were not introduced, and I just feel that the latter would be much better, interesting addition by comparison. By keeping the ‘Mixed Match Challenge’ and introducing a women's tag team division, you could then keep both in the company as well, with only one of them being a regular format in WWE.

In summary

At this point in time, the women’s division feels like something that will only continue to grow, both in size (in terms of wrestlers) and importance within WWE. By introducing new championships it might help this division to create greater matches, more compelling story-lines and hopefully a better product overall.

*I would like to extend my gratitude to Sylvain Pagnier who created the images in this post and gave his permission for the images to be used in this blog, please follow him on Twitter @SylvainCobain*

- Christian Reeve

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