In the United States, there are currently four major
professional wrestling promotions that have a unified division with a title:
WWE,
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA),
Ring of Honor (ROH), and
All Elite Wrestling (AEW), in addition to a number of independent promotions with women's wrestling divisions and championships. TNA's female wrestlers are branded as the
Knockouts, while ROH's female talent were formally known as the
Women of Honor, and WWE's female talent were known as the
Divas until 2016.
Shimmer Women Athletes, which operated from 2005 to 2021, is recognized as the earliest and most prominent promotion to take women's wrestling more seriously. Two notable women-only promotions are the
World Wrestling Network's
Shine Wrestling brand (est. 2012) in
Florida, which began as a sister to Shimmer; and
Women of Wrestling (WOW) (est. 2000, 2012) in
Los Angeles. In addition to Shine,
Rise Wrestling is another promotion that was established as one of Shimmer's sister promotions and was originally a
developmental program for the latter company. In 2018, they began a partnership with Impact Wrestling, which saw Impact talent compete at Rise events.
Championships is recognized as having held the
WWF Women's Championship for 28 years. Women's wrestling has maintained a recognized world champion since 1937, when
Mildred Burke won the
original World Women's title. She then formed the World Women's Wrestling Association in the early 1950s and recognized herself as the first champion, although the championship would be vacated upon her retirement in 1956. The
National Wrestling Alliance however, ceased to acknowledge Burke as Women's World champion in 1954, and instead acknowledged
June Byers as champion after a controversial finish to a high-profile match between Burke and Byers that year. Upon Byers' retirement in 1964,
The Fabulous Moolah, who won a junior heavyweight version of the
NWA World Women's Championship (the predecessor to the original
WWE Women's Championship) in a tournament back in 1958, was recognized by most NWA promoters as champion by default. In WWE, female professional wrestlers are members of one of the promotion's four women's divisions who compete in both singles competition and
tag teams. WWE has six active women's championships: the
WWE Raw Women's Championship (which is the successor to the
WWE Divas Championship, which in turn succeeded the original
WWE Women's Championship created in 1956) for the
Raw brand, the
WWE SmackDown Women's Championship for the
SmackDown brand, the
WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, the
NXT Women's Championship and
NXT Women's Tag Team Championship for the
NXT brand, and the
NXT UK Women's Championship for the
NXT UK brand. The Fabulous Moolah is recognized as
WWE's first
Women's Champion, with her reign beginning in 1956. In 2002, WWE began what was called the
WWE brand extension, where wrestlers and championships became exclusive to one of WWE's brands. At first, the Women's Championship could be defended on any brand, but later that year, it became exclusive to the
Raw brand. In 2008, WWE created the
WWE Divas Championship as a counterpart title for the
SmackDown brand. The two titles were eventually unified in September 2010. The Women's Championship was then retired in favor of keeping the Divas Championship, which became briefly known as the Unified WWE Divas Championship. The brand extension ended in 2011. In April 2016 at
WrestleMania 32, the Divas Championship was retired and subsequently replaced with a new
WWE Women's Championship, which has a separate title history from the original. WWE then reintroduced the brand extension in July 2016 and the Women's Championship (now Raw Women's Championship) became exclusive to Raw. In August 2016, SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship as a counterpart title. In WWE's
NXT brand, women compete for the NXT Women's Championship, which was established in 2013. The
NXT UK brand would create its counterpart title, the
NXT UK Women's Championship, in 2018. The
WWE Women's Tag Team Championship was announced on the 24 December 2018 edition of
Monday Night Raw. The inaugural champions were
The Boss 'n' Hug Connection (Sasha Banks & Bayley) who defeated
The IIconics (Peyton Royce & Billie Kay),
The Riot Squad (Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan), Nia Jax & Tamina,
Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville and Naomi & Carmella at the
2019 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. (left) and
Ayako Hamada (right) with the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship belts in July 2010 Impact's women's championship is the
Knockouts World Championship, which debuted on 14 October 2007. Its inaugural champion was
Gail Kim, who won the title at
Bound for Glory 2007. The promotion's tag team championship is known as the
Knockouts World Tag Team Championship. The title was introduced at
No Surrender 2009 and its inaugural champions were the team of
Sarita and
Taylor Wilde. The titles were initially deactivated on the 20 June 2013 episode of
Impact!, but their return was announced at
Bound for Glory 2020. At
Hard To Kill, Fire N Flava (
Kiera Hogan and
Tasha Steelz) won a tournament to become the tag team champions. ROH's has sporadically featured women's wrestling matches at its shows, dating back to a former working relationship with Shimmer. By 2017, ROH had been regularly featuring women's wrestling under the
Women of Honor banner, culminating in the creation of the
Women of Honor World Championship in December 2017 and the announcement at
Final Battle 2017 of a tournament to crown the first champion. Stars from
Japan's
World Wonder Ring Stardom also participated in the tournament.
Sumie Sakai became the inaugural Women of Honor Champion when she won the title at
Supercard of Honor XII in 2018.
WWE Women's Revolution , the only woman to have held WWE's
SmackDown (pictured in 2018),
Raw,
Divas and
NXT Women's Championships In 2015, WWE revamped its women's divisions by hiring mainly independent wrestlers as opposed to models, initially known as the "
Diva's Revolution" and later known as the "Women's Revolution".
NXT TakeOver: Respect, held on 7 October 2015, saw then-
NXT Women's Champion Bayley defend her title against
Sasha Banks in a 30–minute
Iron Man match in the
main event. This was the first women's match to headline a major WWE event, and the first time in WWE history that a women's match had this stipulation. A new
WWE Women's Championship was unveiled and contested at
WrestleMania 32 on 3 April 2016, between then-
Divas Champion Charlotte Flair,
Becky Lynch and
Sasha Banks in a triple threat match. After Wrestlemania, the Diva's Championship and the "Diva's" branding would be retired. Following the
2016 WWE Brand Extension, the new Women's Championship would become exclusive to the Raw brand, resulting in the creation of the
SmackDown Women's Championship.
Becky Lynch would become the inaugural champion at
Backlash after winning a
Six-pack elimination challenge. The following month, at
Hell in a Cell, Charlotte would face Sasha Banks in a match for the
Raw Women's Championship in what would be the first time a women's match was the main event of a WWE pay-per-view, as well as the first-ever women's
Hell in a Cell match. At the 2017
Money in the Bank pay-per-view, the first-ever Women's Money in the Bank ladder match was held with the winner receiving a contract for a
SmackDown Women's Championship match. The following month, WWE would hold a women's wrestling tournament called the
Mae Young Classic, named after the late
Mae Young. In 2018, the January
Royal Rumble pay-per-view would feature the first-ever women's
Royal Rumble match in the main event, which would be the longest women's match in WWE history at the time. The following month, at the 2018
Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, the first-ever women's
Elimination Chamber match took place. Later that year, WWE would present its first all-women's pay-per-view event:
WWE Evolution. The Women's Evolution would culminate at
WrestleMania 35 in 2019, where
Charlotte Flair,
Becky Lynch, and
Ronda Rousey would compete in a
Winner Takes All triple threat match for the Raw and SmackDown Women's championships in what would be the first time that female superstars would main event WWE's flagship event. Nikki and Brie Bella, twin sisters who were inducted into WWEs Hall of Fame is 2021, came out of retirement for 2022 Women's Royal Rumble. Brie was the first to win a WWE Championship, but Nikki held the championship twice and held that reign longer than Brie.
Erotic Promotions such as the
Naked Women's Wrestling League showcased
nude females
"battling" in the ring for titillation. The NWWL broadcast shows around the world, and its wrestlers were featured in magazines such as
Penthouse,
Playboy, and
Maxim. == Japan ==