| WWE Women's Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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Layla, the final Women's champion. |
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| Details | |||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | World Wrestling Entertainment | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | September 18, 1956 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date retired | September 19, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Other name(s) |
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The WWE Women's Championship was a professional wrestling championship in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promotion. Created in 1956, it was the oldest active professional wrestling championship in World Wrestling Entertainment history until its retirement in 2010 as a result from a unification with the WWE Divas Championship.[2]
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The WWE Women's Championship was originally known as the NWA World Women's Championship of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In 1956, The Fabulous Moolah became the inaugural champion on September 18 as recognized by World Wrestling Entertainment.[3] The WWE Women's Championship is descended from the original NWA World Women's Championship of the National Wrestling Alliance, which is still active today. In 1983, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) disaffiliated with the NWA and recognized then-NWA Women's World Champion The Fabulous Moolah as the promotion's World Women's Champion. Additionally, the WWF also recognized Moolah's reign at the time as a continuation of her first NWA World Women's Championship reign, which occurred in 1956, resulting in the promotion not recognizing other reigns that occurred during the title's existence in the NWA. Thus, The Fabulous Moolah's reign is considered to have lasted 27 years by the promotion. The WWF soon renamed their recognition of the title as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Women's Championship.
In 1990, the Women's Championship became inactive after Rockin' Robin vacated the championship following her departure from the WWF.[4][5] Then in December 1993, the title was reactivated with Alundra Blayze winning a tournament for the vacant Women's Championship.[6] The Women's Championship, however, became inactive again when Blayze unexpectedly signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1995 while still champion, forcing her to relinquish the title.[7] The Women's Championship was reactivated again in September 1998 when Jacqueline Moore defeated Sable to win the title.[7]
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, the WWE Undisputed Championship and WWE Women's Championship became the only titles allowed to be defended on both the Raw and SmackDown! brands, while all other titles were exclusive to a single brand. Later, the Women's Championship became exclusive to only the Raw brand.
On June 24, 2007, Candice Michelle became the first ever former WWE Diva Search contestant to win the WWE Women's Championship by defeating then champion Melina at Vengeance. The Women's Championship 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. In effect, the WWE Women's Championship became exclusive to the Raw brand only and the WWE Divas Championship, to the Smackdown brand.
On April 13, 2009, the Women's Championship was transferred to the SmackDown brand when reigning champion Melina was drafted from Raw to SmackDown during the 2009 WWE Draft. On June 28 at The Bash (2009) pay-per-view, Michelle McCool became the first ever Diva to hold both the WWE Women's Championship and the WWE Divas Championship. Other divas that have held both the Women's and Divas Championship include Beth Phoenix, Mickie James and Melina.
It was announced on the August 30 edition of Raw that the championship would be unified with its counterpart, the Divas Championship, at the Night of Champions event. This match was won by Michelle McCool and unified both titles creating the Unified WWE Divas Championship, thus making the Women's Championship defunct as the unified title follows the lineage of the Divas Championship.[2][8]
The inaugural champion was The Fabulous Moolah who defeated Judy Grable in September 1956 and she by far had the longest official reign by holding it for 27 years, 10 months, 5 days, or a total of 10,170 days. Trish Stratus has had more reigns than anyone else, with seven. Mickie James has the shortest reign, while in Paris on April 24, 2007. James defeated then-champion Melina and Victoria in a Triple Threat Match. However, Jonathan Coachman, the Acting General Manager for Raw said that since Mickie pinned Victoria, Melina deserved an immediate rematch in which she won by having her feet on the ropes. Chyna, Trish Stratus (Last Reign) and Layla are the only undefeated champions in WWE history as Chyna retired during her first reign and Michelle McCool unified the Divas and Women's titles in Layla's place(Layla being the Womens Champion at the time). Rockin Robin was stripped of the title when she left and the title was deactivated.
Layla (officially) was the final champion after she defeated Beth Phoenix in a two-on-one handicap match, on the May 11, 2010 taping of SmackDown, which aired on May 14.[9][10] Overall, there have been a total of 29 recognized champions with 59 official WWE Women's Championship reigns combined.[11]
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