Opinion: WWE Should Bring Back the Women’s Tag Team Championship

Ultimately, what drives wrestlers, or brings intrigue to the matches we watch every week is what the performers are fighting for in the ring. Whether it’s honor, a personal feud, or a championship, the matches in pro wrestling are supposed to mean something in terms of storytelling. That’s the point of the business.

Currently, WWE’s main roster has the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the Intercontinental Title, the United States Championship, and the Tag Team title for all male competitors.

That’s four prizes that the men of the roster can chase and bestow their name to and most great work in WWE has been done with those titles.

All of these belts have different values for the fans and the people that wrestle for them. However, the Divas Division has one title, the Divas Championship. Until very recently, that title didn’t hold a lot of value.

WWE most likely won’t give her the credit she deserves for her role in elevating the Divas Championship, but it was AJ Lee that brought legitimacy to the title.

Some people can complain about title defenses, wrestling ability, or any other negative argument. The fact is in 2012 when AJ was involved in the CM Punk and Daniel Bryan feud for the WWE Championship, she was the most over performer on the roster.

Punk was in the middle of his historic 434-day title reign and Daniel Bryan was in the beginning of the “Yes Movement”, yet most people were wondering what the “crazy” AJ was going to do next. She did that without being anywhere near the Divas Championship.

By the time she did, the title felt bigger because AJ held it. She then set the record for the longest reign in history with two hundred and ninety-five days. On the last day, Paige debuted and won the Divas Championship from AJ and it made her career in one night.

Nikki Bella just broke AJ’s record and reset the longest reign to just over three-hundred days. The fact that it was Aj’s record that was broken cemented Bella as a great champion and gave Charlotte’s career a huge boost when she won the title from Nikki at “Night of Champions”.

That wasn’t intended as a history lesson. I wanted to make that clear because only five women have held the WWE Divas Championship in the last three years. You could look back on that time and think about the great title reigns of AJ, Bella, and Paige.

I do see that side of it, but I also see the number of women who haven’t been able to become the Divas Champion, or claim a prize in the division because there is only one title to chase.

That leaves many performers dwindling without a storyline because for years, WWE only ran a short Divas segment on Raw that garnered little interest from the WWE Universe. I think a huge part of the fan’s lack of enthusiasm was based around only having one story in the division.

Since the start of the “Divas Revolution”, the current Divas division is floundering with talent. However, we’re still seeing only one story being told at a time while all others are waiting at bay for their time to shine.

Sasha Banks is a perfect example. In my opinion and it’s a popular opinion, The Boss is the best female wrestler in the division. I’d argue on the entire roster, but that’s a different matter. Her work at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn and Respect should have catapulted her to the Divas Championship immediately.

However, she isn’t being featured on WWE television very often and she’s barely on Smackdown, let alone on Monday Night Raw. In my book, that’s unacceptable.

She’s not the only one being held down. Frankly, anyone in the division that isn’t a Bella, Paige, or Charlotte has been drastically underused since the “Divas Revolution” began this summer. That is undeniably unfair.

However, there is a solution that WWE should strongly consider. WWE should bring back the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.

WWE had this championship from 1983 until 1989 when the title was abandoned. I think the roster is full of more than enough talent to bring this championship back in 2015.

It’s actually really simple. WWE has established three teams: Team Bad, Team Bella, and Team PCB. Paige has gone solo, and Charlotte is the WWE Divas Champion. That just leaves Becky Lynch and she’s unlikely to get much television time on her own. There is a depleted Team Bella and Team Bad just waiting for their turn.

These “teams” should be like alliances. They should be able to alternate and change as the characters do.

For example, if WWE brought back the Women’s Tag Team titles now, they could give Team Bad a feud against the remaining members of Team Bella or a new team of Becky Lynch and Natalya.

If Paige loses on Sunday to Charlotte at “Survivor Series”, she could sub into whichever team makes sense. If Sasha Banks becomes the new No. 1 Contender for Charlotte, Paige could sub into Team Bad and so on.

For me, this makes the most sense to give the women of the Divas division something else to chase than just one title, and it would form alliances within the division that will always be a way to create new feuds.

If WWE wants to make women’s wrestling as important and they claim on television, they need to start thinking like this and use the performers they have. The Divas division could be doing so much more right now.