(
Sasha Banks and
Bayley), who became the inaugural champions at
Elimination Chamber 2019; during their second reign, they did not use their previous team name. In 1989, the then-
World Wrestling Federation (WWF) abandoned the
WWF Women's Tag Team Championship due to a lack of women's tag teams in the division. This remained true up through the 2000s—in 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). In the early 2010s, the women's division began growing, and in 2012, WWE.com ran an article supporting the resurrection of the Women's Tag Team Championship. In 2014,
The Bella Twins (
Brie Bella and
Nikki Bella) discussed a desire to establish a Divas Tag Team Championship—from 1999 to 2016, female performers were referred to as Divas and their top championship from 2010 to 2016 was the
WWE Divas Championship. The idea for a women's tag team championship was seemingly forgotten about until mid-2018; in an interview with
Sky Sports, WWE's
Chief Brand Officer at the time,
Stephanie McMahon, stated that in regards to the title debuting, "Not quite yet, but that's absolutely something we've heard loud and clear from our fan base and it's something we're keen on implementing as soon as we are able to". Prior to WWE's first all-female
pay-per-view (PPV) and
livestreaming event,
Evolution, in October, speculations—including comments from the company's female performers—arose that the promotion would debut the title at the event. Just prior to the event, Stephanie said that the title would be coming "sooner than we think"; During the December 24, 2018, special Christmas episode of
Raw, WWE's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at the time,
Vince McMahon, officially announced that a new WWE Women's Tag Team Championship would be introduced in 2019. On the January 14, 2019, episode of
Raw, the championship belts were unveiled by
Alexa Bliss during her segment, "A Moment of Bliss". After the unveiling, Bliss announced that the inaugural champions would be decided at
Elimination Chamber on February 17, 2019, in a tag team
Elimination Chamber match, featuring three teams from
Raw and three teams from
SmackDown, making the title available to both
brands. On the February 18 episode of
Raw, it was revealed that the titles could also be defended on the
NXT brand. To determine the three teams from Raw, qualification matches were held and began on the January 28 episode of
Raw. The teams of
Nia Jax and
Tamina, and
The Riott Squad (
Liv Morgan and
Sarah Logan) qualified by defeating the teams of Alexa Bliss and
Mickie James, and
Natalya and
Dana Brooke, respectively. The following week,
The Boss 'n' Hug Connection (Bayley and Sasha Banks) defeated
Alicia Fox and
Nikki Cross to win Raw's final spot. No qualification matches were held to determine the three teams from SmackDown due to its smaller roster, and instead, each team declared their participation. The
team of
Mandy Rose and
Sonya Deville announced theirs on the January 29 episode of
SmackDown Live,
The IIconics (
Billie Kay and
Peyton Royce) confirmed their entry via
Twitter, and
Carmella and
Naomi accepted the final spot on the February 5 episode. The Boss 'n' Hug Connection would go on and win the match, lastly eliminating Rose and Deville by way of Banks submitting Deville, to become the inaugural champions. On the March 3, 2021, episode of
NXT, reigning WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Nia Jax and
Shayna Baszler defended the championship against NXT's
Dakota Kai and
Raquel González, who had earned the title opportunity for winning the inaugural Women's
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. The match ended in controversy, however, as the referee was taken out and
Adam Pearce, the WWE official of Raw and SmackDown at the time, sent a second referee to the ring, who ruled that Kai submitted to Baszler, although Kai was not the legal woman. The following week, in response to the controversy, then-NXT General Manager
William Regal established the
NXT Women's Tag Team Championship for the brand as to not deal with Raw and SmackDown's politics any longer, and awarded the championship to Kai and González. The WWE Women's Tag Team Championship effectively became no longer available to NXT. During the May 16, 2022, episode of
Raw, reigning champions Naomi and Sasha Banks reportedly
walked out after a meeting with Vince McMahon due to a creative dispute. WWE released an official statement, in which the company stated that Naomi and Banks "walked into WWE Head of Talent Relations
John Laurinaitis' office with their suitcases in hand, placed their tag team championship belts on his desk and walked out". The two were originally booked for the show's main event, which had to be reworked. On the following episode of
SmackDown, it was announced that Naomi and Banks had been suspended indefinitely, therefore the title was
vacated (they both later left the company although Naomi returned in January 2024). A tournament was also announced to determine new champions. On the August 5 episode of
SmackDown, Adam Pearce announced that the tournament would begin on the August 8 episode of
Raw. Although the championship was no longer defended on NXT, one team from the brand competed in the tournament as part of the SmackDown bracket. The team of
Aliyah and Raquel Rodriguez (formerly Raquel González) won the tournament to win the vacant championship. Rousey and Baszler won to become the undisputed WWE Women's Tag Team Champions, thus making the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship available to NXT once again. The NXT Women's Tag Team Championship was subsequently retired in the process. According to
Fightful, the unification match was planned to happen right after the draft, but due to various injuries within the division, it got delayed.
Fightful also noted there had been confusion regarding the original creation of the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship, as the company already had the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship and there were not many women's tag teams in the division. Furthermore, it was noted that the plan after the unification was that the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship would appear on NXT programming "when needed", which was the original plan for the title.
WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament (2022) After
Naomi and
Sasha Banks had been suspended indefinitely and the
WWE Women's Tag Team Championship had been vacated,
SmackDown commentator
Michael Cole announced that there would be a tournament to declare new champions. ==Belt design==