WWE Women's Championship

The Fabulous Moolah, WWE's inaugural and longest reigning women's champion

WWE (formerly the WWF, WWWF, and its predecessor, Capitol Wrestling) has maintained several women's professional wrestling championships since acquiring The Fabulous Moolah's NWA World Women's Championship in 1984. Whenever brand division has been implemented, separate women's titles have been created or allocated for each brand.

Overview of titles

History

Mickie James is a six-time women's champion in WWE, winning the WWE Women's Championship five times and the WWE Divas Championship once; she is the only woman to have competed for five of the six primary women's championships to have existed in WWE.

Charlotte Flair is a four-time Raw Women's Champion, and a two-time SmackDown Women's Champion, and a one-time Divas Champion, and NXT Women's Champion; she is the only woman to have won four of the six primary women's championships to have existed in WWE; the most any other woman has held is two.

On September 18, 1956, The Fabulous Moolah became the third NWA World Women's Champion. Moolah had worked for the northeastern United States-based Capitol Wrestling Corporation, a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), since the previous year.^[1] In 1963, Capitol Wrestling seceded from the NWA and established itself as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF); it quietly rejoined the NWA in 1971. Moolah bought the rights to the championship in the 1970s, and continued to defend the championship as the NWA World Women's Champion. The WWWF, renamed to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979, withdrew from the NWA for good in 1983, and Moolah sold the championship's rights to the WWF in 1984, and she was recognized as the WWF Women's Champion.^[2] Instead of beginning her reign in 1984, the WWF claimed the lineage of her reign from when she first became champion in 1956. The preceding champions and the title changes between 1956 and when Moolah lost it in 1984 are not recognized by WWE (although they are recognized by the NWA^[3]). As a result, The Fabulous Moolah's first reign is considered to have lasted 28 years by the promotion.^[4]

In 1990, the Women's Championship became inactive after Rockin' Robin vacated the championship following her departure from the WWF.^[5][6] Then in December 1993, the title was reactivated with Alundra Blayze winning a tournament for the vacant Women's Championship.^[7] However, the Women's Championship became inactive again when Blayze was released from the WWF. Blayze, as Madusa, unexpectedly signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1995 and threw the championship belt, which was still in her possession, in a trash can on an episode of WCW Monday Nitro.^[8] The Women's Championship was reactivated again in September 1998 when Jacqueline Moore defeated Sable to win the title.^[8]

After the WWF/WWE name change in 2002, the championship was subsequently referred to as the WWE Women's Championship. With the WWE brand extension in March 2002, the Women's Championship at first was still defended on both the Raw and SmackDown brands, while most titles were exclusive to one brand. In September, the Women's Championship became exclusive to only the Raw brand, but remained the sole championship contested by women until July 4, 2008, when a counterpart to the championship, called the WWE Divas Championship, was created for the SmackDown brand. The titles switched brands in after their respective title holders were drafted to the opposite brands in the 2009 WWE draft.

The Women's Championship was unified with the Divas Championship at Night of Champions in September 2010, creating the Unified WWE Divas Championship and rendering the Women's Championship defunct as the unified title followed the lineage of the Divas Championship; the title eventually dropped the "Unified" moniker.^[9] The Divas Championship continued as the only women's championship of the main roster until 2016 when it was retired and replaced by a new WWE Women's Championship at WrestleMania 32. This came after the term "Diva" was scrutinized by some commentators, fans, and several past and present WWE female performers who were in favor of changing the championship to the Women's Championship. The division itself was also changed from being called the Divas division to being called the Women's division. The new championship does not share its title history with the previous championships.^[10][11][12]

Following the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, then-champion Charlotte Flair was drafted to the Raw brand, making the championship exclusive to Raw. In response, SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship on August 23, 2016. The WWE Women's Championship was subsequently renamed to Raw Women's Championship to reflect its exclusivity to Raw. In addition, WWE's developmental brand NXT established its own Women's Championship in April 2013. The Raw, SmackDown, and NXT women's titles are WWE's three currently active women's championships. Another women's championship, the NXT UK Women's Championship, is set to debut for WWE's new NXT UK brand in 2018.

Championships

Longest championship reigns with a primary title

The Fabulous Moolah, Asuka, and Nikki Bella both retain the specific records for each of their respective titles held. At present, Alexa Bliss holds the specific record for the Raw Women's Championship at 7002223000000000000♠223 days for her second reign, and Charlotte Flair holds the specific record for the SmackDown Women's Championship at 7002147000000000000♠147 days for her first reign.

References