We hardly knew thee.
It’s evident that a change of eras is occurring in the WWE currently, because when blets start changing across the board, it’s a sure sign that we’re about to embark on a new era, that won’t officially be named, because they tend to happen organically based on the trend of whatever is going on.
At this point, there’s been a new big gold blet introduced, Roman Reigns’ two world championship blets have been merged into a singular gold variant of the same blet and called Undisputed, and just this past week on Smackdown, Asuka was awarded a brand new women’s championship, which was basically the women’s variant of Roman Reigns’ gold variant, but with a white strap, because as the E has established over the last era, black strap = men, white strap = women.
Obviously, I’m stoked that Asuka is the first one to hold the new women’s gold logo blet because I’m a fan of hers, and it seems inevitable that Rhea Ripley will be getting a new championship blet to replace the blue Smackdown variant, which if I had to guess will probably be the same thing as Seth Rollins’ new big gold blet, but with a white strap.
The United States and Intercontinental blets were re-designed in the middle of the last era, so they will probably stand pat for a little while longer, and I suspect that the Unified tag team blets that are currently held by Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens will probably be consolidated sometime soon. But apparently the women’s tag team blets are on the docket next, because we’re getting this seemingly random and out of nowhere program pitting the WWE Women’s Tag champions against the NXT Women’s Tag champions who were drafted to the main roster without any resolution to what was going to happen with their NXT titles.
It’s not often where an outcome seems so overwhelmingly foregone, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s about the layup of the century that Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler are going to defeat Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn, and merge the NXT Women’s tag blets into their own, with a new design possibly to come soon, or maybe not, if scuttlebutt is accurate and Vince McMahon has more influence than is believed because he clearly doesn’t give a flying fuck about women’s wrestling and probably won’t bother redesigning their blets.
And a part of me hopes that doesn’t happen, because it’d be nice for the blets that I have replicas of for my daughters actually lasts a substantial amount of time, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, the NXT Women’s Tag Team championship barely lasted two years, so it really is genuine to say, we hardly knew thee. Created because of a potential feud that went nowhere involving main roster talent versus NXT talent, the reality is that it was probably more for the WWEShop to have another replica to peddle, which reminds me that if they ever reduce the cost of these I might have to pick up a pair for my daughters, but what could’ve been a great championship to the brand, was kind of bungled around over the last two years, primarily due to the re-branding, management changes, personnel changes, injuries and just a lack of good booking.
In a way, I understand why the WWE is pulling the plug on the NXT Women’s Tag Team championship, but as someone who has always kept a close eye on the women’s division and the growth of women’s wrestling throughout the years, it doesn’t come without a feeling of good riddance from the company, which makes me a little melancholy about it.
All the same, going back a step, I wish there could’ve been a little bit more buildup for the match between the two teams, to at least give the ol’ college try to sell Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn as threats to Rousey and Baszler. Most fans are aware of Kay Lee Ray, before becoming Alba Fyre, and how she’s a phenomenal worker in her own right, way stronger than anyone else in this match and if I could get more granular, it also goes without saying that Isla Dawn is the one who’s going to eat the L in this match, with the only question being whom she taps out to between Rousey or Baszler.
Either way, I don’t anticipate this match going to be particularly any good, save for the moments when Fyre and Baszler are in the ring, as they’re the two most competent workers of the foursome, but it’ll still be sad to see the plug being officially pulled on a championship. I hope this means that once unified, the Women’s champions can return to being floating champions, apt to show up on NXT every now and then, because I do love the idea of floating champions, and it would be great to see them once again.
