Women's World Championship (WWE)

The Women's World Championship was originally established as the SmackDown Women's Championship on August 23, 2016. Its creation came as a result of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE reintroducing the brand extension, where the company again divided its roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform; the first brand split ended in August 2011. During the 2016 draft, reigning WWE Women's Champion Charlotte was drafted to Raw, leaving SmackDown without a women's championship. Immediately following SummerSlam on the August 23, 2016, episode of SmackDown, SmackDown commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan unveiled the SmackDown Women's Championship (Raw's title was subsequently renamed as Raw Women's Championship).^[1]

A six-pack elimination challenge was then scheduled for Backlash on September 11, 2016, to determine the inaugural champion. The six women who competed at SummerSlam in the six-woman tag team match were chosen for the six-pack challenge: Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Carmella, Naomi, Natalya, and Nikki Bella.^[2] Lynch became the inaugural champion when she last eliminated Carmella.^[3] The NXT Women's Championship would become WWE's third main women's title when NXT, the promotion's developmental brand, became recognized as WWE's third major brand in September 2019 when it was moved to the USA Network.^[4] However, this recognition was reversed when NXT reverted to being WWE's developmental brand in September 2021.^[5]

As a result of the 2023 WWE Draft, the Raw and SmackDown women's championships switched brands and there were no title changes for either championship before draft results went into effect on May 8. The issue of the SmackDown Women's Championship being on Raw was then resolved on the June 12, 2023, episode of Raw. That night, WWE official Adam Pearce unveiled a new championship belt to reigning champion Rhea Ripley, with the title subsequently renamed as the Women's World Championship. This came shortly after the Raw Women's Championship reverted to its original name of WWE Women's Championship on June 9.^[6]

The title headlined a WWE pay-per-view and livestreaming event for the first time at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs in December 2018, where Becky Lynch defended it in a triple threat Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match against Charlotte Flair and Asuka, which Asuka won; this was also the first women's TLC triple threat match.^[7] The title was then on the line in a winner takes all triple threat match in the main event of WrestleMania 35 in April 2019, where Flair defended the title against Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey and Lynch, who won the match. This was the first women's match to main event a WrestleMania – WWE's flagship event.^[8][9] At Super ShowDown in February 2020, the title became the first women's championship to be defended in Saudi Arabia, where Bayley retained the title over Naomi; this was only the second women's match contested in the country.^[10] The title would again be on the line in the main event of a WrestleMania, this time Night 1 of WrestleMania 37 in April 2021 where Bianca Belair defeated Sasha Banks to win the title;^[11] this was also the first time that two African-Americans headlined a WrestleMania and only the second women's match to main event the annual show.^[12] The title was defended for a second time in Saudi Arabia at Crown Jewel in 2021, where Becky Lynch retained against Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks in a triple threat match.^[13]

The championship was established to be exclusive to its namesake brand, SmackDown. An incident occurred in the 2021 WWE Draft where both the Raw and SmackDown women's champions were drafted to the opposite brands. To keep the titles on their respective brands, the champions swapped titles.^[14] However, this same incident occurred in the 2023 draft, but the champions instead kept their titles, thus the titles changed brands despite their namesakes. This issue would be resolved as the titles were subsequently renamed to remove the brands.^[6]

As the SmackDown Women's Championship, the title was represented by a belt using the same "Network Logo" design as the WWE Women's Championship, with the only difference being that the background of the center plate and the default side plates' globes were blue (as opposed to red) to symbolize its exclusivity to SmackDown. In what has become a prominent feature on all of WWE's championship belts, the side plates could be customized with the reigning champion's logo. During Naomi's second reign with the SmackDown Women's Championship belt in 2017, strips of multi interchanging colored LED lights were placed around the outline of the WWE logo and the outline of the belt to go with her "glow" gimmick.^[15]

When the title became the Women's World Championship in June 2023, it adopted a near-identical design to the men's World Heavyweight Championship that had been introduced in April, albeit smaller, on a white strap, and with a small banner above the "World" banner that says "Women's". It also retains the customizable side plates.^[6]

As of November 21, 2024, there have been 28 reigns between 13 champions and 2 vacancies. Becky Lynch was the inaugural champion. Charlotte Flair has the most reigns at seven. Bayley's second reign and Rhea Ripley's sole reign are tied for the longest singular reign at 380 days (379 days for both as recognized by WWE), while Flair's fourth reign is the shortest at 4 minutes and 55 seconds. Bayley holds the record for the longest combined reign at 520 days. Becky Lynch is the oldest champion, having won the title at 37 years, 83 days old, while Alexa Bliss is the youngest when she won it at 25. Only two women have held the title for a continuous reign of one year (365 days) or more: Bayley and Rhea Ripley.

Liv Morgan is the current champion in her second reign. She defeated Becky Lynch at King and Queen of the Ring on May 25, 2024, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

• Official Women's World Title History
•   Media related to Wrestlers as the WWE SmackDown Women's champion at Wikimedia Commons