NXT Women's Championship


The NXT Women's Championship is a women's professional wrestling championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, defended on their NXT brand division. It is one of the top singles championships for women among WWE's three main brands, along with the WWE Raw Women's Championship on Raw and the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship on SmackDown. The current champion is Io Shirai, who is in her first reign.
Introduced on April 5, 2013, the title was established as the women's championship for NXT, which at the time was a developmental territory for WWE. The inaugural champion was Paige. Over the years, NXT grew to become WWE's third major brand, which became official in September 2019 when NXT was moved to the USA Network.

History

In June 2012, the WWE established NXT as their developmental territory, replacing Florida Championship Wrestling. The following year on April 5, the NXT Women's Championship was introduced during WrestleMania Axxess. On the May 30 tapings of NXT, WWE's Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon announced that there would be an eight-woman single-elimination tournament, featuring four women from NXT and four from WWE's main roster competing to be crowned the first NXT Women's Champion. During the June 20 tapings of NXT, Paige defeated Emma in the tournament final to become the inaugural champion.
Paige successfully defended her title at Arrival against Emma, however, then-NXT General Manager John "Bradshaw" Layfield stripped Paige of the title on the April 24, 2014 episode of NXT, as Paige had recently won the WWE Divas Championship, and was in turn promoted to WWE's main roster. A new tournament began the following week. The finals occurred at TakeOver where Charlotte defeated Natalya to win the vacant NXT Women's Championship. On the September 16, 2015 episode of NXT, now NXT General Manager William Regal announced that Bayley would defend her title against Sasha Banks in the main event at on October 7 in the first ever 30-minute Iron Woman match in WWE history. At the event, Bayley defeated Banks to retain the championship, scoring the win with 3 falls to 2.
Although NXT had been established as WWE's developmental territory, over the years it grew to establish itself as WWE's third major brand. This would become official in September 2019 when NXT was moved to the USA Network. This also made the NXT Women's Championship one of the top three singles titles for women in WWE, along with the WWE Raw Women's Championship—which had replaced the Divas title in 2016–and WWE SmackDown Women's Championship.
In January 2020, WWE briefly began referring to the women's championship as the "NXT Championship" to bring it on an equal level as the men's title, though reverted back to calling it the NXT Women's Championship soon after; it remained as NXT Women's Championship on the official title history during this time.

Inaugural championship tournament (2013)

Second championship tournament (2014)


Belt design

The original NXT Women's Championship belt featured an oval shaped silver center plate. At the top of the plate was the WWE logo. The center of the plate was the NXT logo encrusted with pink diamonds; red coloring was behind the letter "X". Above the NXT logo read "Women's" while below the logo read "Champion". There were two side plates, which were skinny and matched the curve of the center plate. The inner side plates were encrusted with pink diamonds, while the outer side plates were blank silver plates. The plates were on a black leather strap. When first introduced, the WWE logo was the long-standing scratch logo but in August 2014, all of WWE's pre-existing championships at the time received a minor update, changing the scratch logo to WWE's current logo that was originally used for the WWE Network.
On April 1, 2017, at WrestleMania Axxess, NXT General Manager William Regal announced that all of the existing NXT title belts at the time would be redesigned. The new title belts were unveiled at that same night and given to the winners of their respective matches. The redesigned women's championship features a nearly identical design to the redesigned NXT Championship, including being on a black leather strap, but with a couple of notable differences. The belt is smaller to fit the women. The letters "N X T" on the center plate are silver instead of gold, while the rest of the plate is gold. One other difference is that a banner reading "Women's" is underneath the WWE logo. Coming in line with the majority of WWE's other championship belts, the new design features side plates with a removable center section that can be customized with the champion's logo; the default plates feature the WWE logo.

Reigns

As of ,, there have been twelve reigns between ten champions, and two vacancies. Paige was the inaugural champion. Asuka is the longest reigning champion at 510 days, beginning on April 1, 2016 and ending on August 24, 2017, however, WWE recognizes the reign as 522 days, with it ending on September 6, 2017, the date the episode aired on tape delay. Kairi Sane holds the shortest reign at 71 days; WWE recognizes Charlotte Flair's reign as the shortest at 63 days due to tape delay after winning the title at WrestleMania 36. Paige is the youngest champion, winning it at the age of 20, while Shayna Baszler is the oldest, winning the championship at 38. Baszler and Charlotte Flair are tied for the most reigns at two.
Io Shirai is the current champion, in her first reign. She won the title by defeating previous champion Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley in a Triple Threat match at on June 7, 2020 in Winter Park, Florida.

Combined reigns

As of ,.
†Indicates the current champion
¤The exact length of at least one title reign is uncertain, so the shortest length is considered.

External Link

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