One of my favorite mechanics in the WWE is the idea of floating champions. Champions who aren’t limited to just RAW or Smackdown, and can really go anywhere within the company. Throughout the years, the company has dabbled in floating championships, like when they consolidated all belts down to one world championship, women’s and tag team champions, and only those who held the belts could float between RAW and Smackdown.
When business was good rosters got big, old blets were re-established, and championships gained exclusivity to a particular brand. Eventually, when creativity began stagnating, champions began jumping onto other shows for shock value purposes, and to randomly fulfill intriguing champion vs. champion scenarios, or when feuds between-show talents emerged and needed to be fulfilled.
Ultimately, it brings us to today where we’re kind of back to an age of all shows having exclusive titles, but there is one floating championship (that isn’t the farce of the 24/7 championship): the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. It was decreed that the Women’s Tag Team champions could not only hop around from RAW to Smackdown, but it was heavily implied that they could also appear and be defended, on NXT. That concept alone, whet my whistle, because I’m a huge mark for NXT, and I love the creative idea of an NXT team capturing some main roster gold, and the creative possibilities that could emerge from that.
To date, Creative actually came through with this mechanism, and on three occasions, the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles have been defended on NXT: Dakota Kai & Tegan Nox vs. Asuka & Kairi Sane, Tegan Nox & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Bayley & Sasha Banks, and most recently, Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez vs. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax. Despite the fact that NXT has taken the L in all three instances, it has created intriguing television that main roster superstars have appeared in NXT, and had some fun matchups.
However recently, in storyline, there was a controversial finish to the latter matchup between Kai/Gonzalez vs. Baszler/Jax, where main roster stooge Adam Pierce interjected a main roster referee to call the match when the NXT ref was knocked out. This prompted NXT general manager William Regal, to get upset and make a monumental decision, which ultimately ended up being the introduction of the brand new, NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship, and awarded them to Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez, for winning the first edition of the Dusty Rhodes Women’s Tag Team Cup.
And just like that, the WWE Women’s Tag Team championship has most likely ceased its ability to float on down to NXT from here on out, with the exception maybe being Survivor Series, if they ever try to add NXT to the cross-brand competition.
Needless to say, I have mixed emotions about the introduction of NXT Women’s Tag blets. Typically, I couldn’t really care less of what goes on, on the main roster, and enjoy most everything on NXT. But because NXT has created their own Women’s Tag blets, the allure of main roster guys having to do the job to NXT talent is effectively dead, and I think it’s safe to assume that we probably won’t see any WWE Women’s Tag champs down at the performance center from here on out.
Additionally, I’m kind of lukewarm on the design of the blets. When I was catching up on episodes of NXT and we got to the presentation ceremony, I was pretty excited because it was fairly obvious that it was blets under the velvet sheet Regal was talking about, but when they unveiled them, I was kind of scrunched eyebrow and not really that impressed at first blush.
Primarily because, the NXT Women’s tag blets were basically the exact same design as the men’s tag blets, except everything was kind of reversed out. The men’s strap is black, and like the majority of women’s belt straps, these were white. What was silver on the men’s plates were gold on the women’s, and what was gold on the men’s plates were silver on the women’s. And where the men’s blets say “tag team” the women’s blet’s have “Women’s” shoehorned into the same space, like a desperate graphic designer free-transforming text to fit into a condensed space, no matter how flagrant it looked.
Like, I’m happy that there are more women’s blets out there, because women’s wrestling really is one of the true genuine bright spots in the industry outright, but I’m disappointed in the execution of the NXT Women’s Tag blets. I know they’re following the cues of the NXT Women’s championship, where it’s a relative copy of the men’s championship, with the same reversals on the plates, and I think it’s only a matter of time before it too is re-strapped with white, like all other women’s blets throughout the company, but it really just kind of feels like a copout, overall.
But when the day is over, if I had to pick a pair of women’s tag blets to get for my two daughters; which is all but an inevitable certainty to happen, I have to go with the incumbents, and pick the WWE blets. I loved when they were floating championships, and I love that they’re an entirely unique and individual design. I still love NXT more than anything main roster, but when it comes to blet design, the WWE women’s tag blets are still better looking than the new NXT ones.
