The WWE Women’s Championship has been in the headlines recently due to Sasha Banks and Naomi leaving Monday Night Raw due to creative differences with how WWE treats the women’s tag team championship. There are many stories and details that are still coming out about the incident, but as of now the championships are considered vacant and a tournament will be held to crown the new champions. However, a lot of people forget that the company had another Women’s Tag Team Championship, and I thought it would be fun to take a look at the abandoned WWF Women’s Tag Team Championship.
The championship was originally called the World Women’s Tag Team Championships, and then became the NWA World Women’s Tag Team Championships. The titles were owned by the Fabulous Moolah, who had a strong presence in women’s wrestling at the time with many of the women at the time training with Moolah and having Moolah book them. When Velvet McIntyre and Princess Victoria (the NWA Women’s Tag Team Champions at the time) joined the WWF in 1983, the WWF purchased the titles from Moolah and re named them to the WWF Women’s Tag Team Championships. By purchasing the titles, WWF also ended the lineage of the championships and recognized Velvet McIntyre and Princess Victoria as the first champions.
Unfortunately, Princess Victoria suffered a career-ending neck injury during her and Velvet’s championship reign, which led to Desiree Peterson replacing her as Velvet’s partner. This was counted as a second reign for Velvet, even though her team never actually lost the championships in the first place. Velvet and Desiree would hold the championship for about 230 days when they lost to the Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Leilani Kai). The Glamour Girls held the titles for a little over 900 days, which was not out of the ordinary for championship reigns during this time. They lost the championships to the Jumping Bomb Angels at the Royal Rumble in 1988 in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
This was the only time the championship changed hands on television – every other title change happened on house shows, which, again, was not unusual for wrestling during this time period. The Glamour Girls would regain the WWF Women’s Tag Team Championships a few months later when they defeated the Jumping Bomb Angels by count out at a house show in Japan. This marked the Glamour Girls second reign as champions, and they became the only team in the history of the championship to have a second reign with the belt. Velvet McIntyre was the only woman to have held the championship with two different partners.
The WWF Women’s Tag Team Championships were officially deactivated in February of 1989. This came at a time where the WWF decided that there was not a lot of interest in women’s wrestling, and they would also deactivate the WWF Women’s Championship a year later. The WWE would not bring back women’s tag team titles until 2018 when they unveiled the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. The WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship does not hold the same lineage that the WWF Women’s Tag Team Championship did and there is never any mention of this championship from WWE today. It is a bit sad because I feel women that wrestled in that time period are never given the respect they deserve.
They truly paved the way for women today, but we tend to look at women that came later as the trailblazers. I would love to see WWE do a documentary about this lost championship since so much about this championship and the NWA World Women’s Tag Team Championship is unfortunately not recorded accurately or the information was lost along the way. I find classic women’s wrestling so interesting and I think people should take the time to really read into some of the historic championships and promotions that allowed these ladies to shine.
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