The NXT Women's Championship is a

women's professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a dramatic enactment of wrestling as a spectator sport. As is the norm for this sport, women's professional wrestling is organized by wrestling federations called Professional wrestling promotion, promotions. Some prom ...

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

created and promoted by the American

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority-owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. A global integrated media and entertainment company, ...

. It is defended on NXT, the promotion's developmental brand. The current champion is Jacy Jayne, who is in her first reign. She won the title by defeating Stephanie Vaquer on the May 27, 2025, episode of '' NXT''. Introduced on April 5, 2013, the inaugural champion was Paige. In September 2019, the promotion began promoting NXT as its " third main brand" when the '' NXT'' television program was moved to the

USA Network USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...

. Two years later, however, NXT reverted to its original function as WWE's developmental brand. To date, it has been the only NXT championship to be selected by a

Royal Rumble match The Royal Rumble match is a professional wrestling match based on the classic battle royal match in which a number of wrestlers (traditionally 30) aim at eliminating their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the ...

winner, which occurred in

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

, subsequently being the only NXT championship to be defended at a WrestleMania, which occurred at that year's

WrestleMania 36 WrestleMania 36 was a 2020 professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was the 36th annual WrestleMania and was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and NXT brand divisions, the ...

. In September 2022, the NXT UK Women's Championship was unified into the NXT Women's Championship.

History

In June 2012,

established NXT as their

developmental territory Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitos ...

, replacing

Florida Championship Wrestling Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) was a professional wrestling professional wrestling promotion, promotion based on the former National Wrestling Alliance member promotion, Championship Wrestling from Florida, which operated from 1961 until ...

(FCW). The following year on April 5, the NXT Women's Championship was introduced during

WrestleMania Axxess WWE World at WrestleMania, formerly known as WrestleMania Axxess, is a professional wrestling fan convention held by WWE during the week of WrestleMania. The event typically runs for four to five days—from Thursday to Sunday or Monday—and fea ...

. On the May 30 tapings of '' NXT'' ( aired June 5), WWE's Chief Brand Officer

Stephanie McMahon Stephanie Marie McMahon Levesque ( ; ; born September 24, 1976) is an American businesswoman and retired professional wrestler. She is known for her various roles within WWE between 1998 and 2023. The daughter of Vince McMahon, Vince and Lind ...

announced that there would be an eight-woman

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

, featuring four women from NXT and four from WWE's main roster competing to be crowned the first NXT Women's Champion. During the June 20 tapings of ''NXT'' (aired July 24), Paige defeated Emma in the tournament final to become the inaugural champion. Paige successfully defended her title at Arrival against Emma. Then-NXT

General Manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, stripped Paige of the title on the April 24, 2014, episode of ''NXT'', as Paige had recently won the

WWE Divas Championship The WWE Divas Championship was a women's professional wrestling Professional wrestling championship#World championships, world championship in WWE. The championship was created by WWE in 2008, and was introduced as part of the WWE brand extensio ...

, and was in turn promoted to WWE's main roster. A new tournament began the following week. The finals occurred at

TakeOver In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast to the acquisi ...

where Charlotte defeated Natalya to win the vacant NXT Women's Championship. On the September 16, 2015, episode of ''NXT'', now NXT General Manager

William Regal Darren Kenneth Matthews (born 10 May 1968), better known by the ring name William Regal, is an English retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he serves as the vice-president of Global Talent Development. He is also known for ...

announced that Bayley would defend her title against

Sasha Banks Sacha, Sasha, or Sascha may refer to: People * Sasha (name), includes list of people with the name and the variants Sascha or Sacha Musicians * Sacha (singer), born Sacha Visagie, Canadian singer and songwriter * Sasha (DJ) (born 1969), born Alex ...

in the

main event In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...

at TakeOver: Respect on October 7 in the first-ever 30-minute Iron Woman match in WWE history. At the event, Bayley defeated Banks to retain the championship, scoring the win with 3 falls to 2. Although NXT had been established as WWE's developmental territory, WWE began promoting it as their "third brand" in September 2019 when ''NXT'' was moved to the

. This subsequently made the NXT Women's Championship one of the top three singles titles for women in WWE, along with the

Raw Women's Championship The WWE Women's Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, defended on the SmackDown brand division. It is one of two women's world titles for WWE's main roster, a ...

—which had replaced the Divas title in 2016—and the

SmackDown Women's Championship The Women's World Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, defended on the Raw brand division. It is one of two women's world titles for WWE's main roster, along ...

(these two titles would be renamed as WWE Women's Championship and Women's World Championship, respectively, in June 2023). This was validated in 2020; first, Charlotte Flair (previously known as just Charlotte) won the 2020 Women's Royal Rumble and chose to challenge for the NXT Women's Championship at

, becoming the first Royal Rumble winner to challenge for an NXT title, and secondly, the title became the first NXT championship to be defended at a WrestleMania where during WrestleMania 36 Part 2, Flair defeated defending champion

Rhea Ripley Demi Bennett (born 11 October 1996) is an Australian professional wrestler. As of July 2017, she is signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw (WWE brand), Raw WWE brand extension, brand under the ring name Rhea Ripley. She is a List of Women ...

to win her record-tying second NXT Women's Championship. However, WWE revamped NXT in September 2021 and returned the brand to its original function as a developmental territory. In January 2020, WWE briefly began referring to the women's championship as the "NXT Championship" to bring it on an equal level as the men's title, though reverted to calling it the NXT Women's Championship soon after; it remained as NXT Women's Championship on the official title history during this time. In August 2022, WWE announced that the

NXT UK ''NXT UK'' was a professional wrestling television programme that was produced exclusively in the United Kingdom by the American promotion WWE. It aired on BT Sport and 5Action (previously known as Paramount Network). In the United States, the ...

brand would go on hiatus and would relaunch as NXT Europe at a later time. As such, NXT UK's championship's were unified into their respective NXT championship counterparts. On September 4, 2022, at Worlds Collide, reigning NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose defeated NXT UK Women's Champion

Meiko Satomura is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. She is known for her time in American promotion WWE and in Japanese promotion Sendai Girls' Pro Wrestling. She is the former two-time Sendai Girls World Champion and a former one-time NXT UK Wom ...

and Blair Davenport in a

triple threat match Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called " gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some gimmick matches are more common than others and are often used to advance or conclude a storyline. ...

to unify the NXT UK Women's Championship into the NXT Women's Championship. Satomura was recognized as the final NXT UK Women's Champion, while Rose went forward as the unified NXT Women's Champion.

Tournaments

Inaugural NXT Women's Championship tournament (2013)

Second NXT Women's Championship tournament (2014)

Third NXT Women's Championship tournament (2023)

Belt designs

The original NXT Women's Championship belt featured an oval shaped silver center plate. At the top of the plate was the WWE logo. The center of the plate was the NXT logo encrusted with pink diamonds; red coloring was behind the letter "X". Above the NXT logo read "Women's" while below the logo read "Champion". There were two side plates, which were skinny and matched the curve of the center plate. The inner side plates were encrusted with pink diamonds, while the outer side plates were blank silver plates. The plates were on a black leather strap. When first introduced, the WWE logo was the long-standing scratch logo but in August 2014, all of WWE's pre-existing championships at the time received a minor update, changing the scratch logo to WWE's current logo that was originally used for the

WWE Network WWE Network is a subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and digital television network owned by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE, a division of TKO Group Holdings. The service relied on technology develo ...

that launched earlier that year in February. On April 1, 2017, at WrestleMania Axxess, NXT General Manager William Regal announced that all of the existing NXT title belts at the time would be redesigned. The new title belts were unveiled at TakeOver: Orlando that same night and given to the winners of their respective matches. The redesigned women's championship featured a nearly identical design to the redesigned NXT Championship, including being on a black leather strap, but with a couple of notable differences. The belt was smaller to fit the women. The letters "NXT" on the center plate were silver instead of gold, while the rest of the plate was gold. One other difference was that a banner reading "Women's" was underneath the WWE logo. Coming in line with WWE's other championship belts, the new design featured side plates with a removable center section that could be customized with the champion's logo; the default plates featured the WWE logo. On April 2, 2022, during NXT's WrestleMania week event, Stand & Deliver, reigning champion Mandy Rose debuted a new belt design; it was largely similar to the previous version (2017–2022), but the silver behind the logo was replaced by multi-colored paint (matching the NXT 2.0 colorscheme) and the letters "N" and "T" on the center plate were updated to the font style of the NXT 2.0 logo. The default side plates were also updated, replacing the WWE logo with the NXT 2.0 logo. Coming in line with all other women's championships in WWE, the plates were on a white leather strap instead of black. When "NXT 2.0" went back to being called "NXT" in September, the default side plates were updated with the new NXT logo. With ''NXT''s move to

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

on October 1, 2024, the show got a new logo. As a result, both the men's and women's NXT championship belts received an update that same episode. They mostly have the same design as their respective previous version, but with The CW era NXT logo on the center plate and side plates, with more of a globe visible behind the logo on the center plate. The multi-colored paint from the NXT 2.0 version (2022–2024) was also removed, and the plates are now primarily silver with gold accents.

Reigns

As of , , there have been 23 reigns between 20 champions, and three vacancies. Paige was the inaugural champion. Asuka is the longest reigning champion at 510 days, beginning on April 1, 2016, and ending on August 24, 2017; however, WWE recognizes the reign as 522 days, with it ending on September 6, 2017, the date the episode in which she vacated the title aired on tape delay. Indi Hartwell has the shortest reign at 31 days. Paige is the youngest champion, winning it at the age of 20, while

Shayna Baszler Shayna Andrea Baszler ( ; born August 8, 1980) is an American professional wrestler and a former kickboxer and mixed martial artist. She is best known for her time in WWE, where she became a former List of NXT Women's Champions, two-time and lon ...

is the oldest, winning the championship at 38. Baszler,

Charlotte Flair Ashley Elizabeth Fliehr (born April 5, 1986) is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Charlotte Flair. Flair is a second-generation professional wrestler, being t ...

, and Roxanne Perez are tied for the most reigns at two. Only three women have held the title for a continuous reign of one year (365 days) or more: Asuka, Shayna Baszler, and Mandy Rose. Jacy Jayne is the current champion in her first reign. She defeated Stephanie Vaquer on the May 27, 2025, episode of ''NXT'' in

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

Notes

References

External links

Official NXT Women's Championship title history
* {{NXT Championships WWE NXT championships WWE women's championships Women's professional wrestling championships