Do women’s tag titles work?

[Sephiroth]

Mulling on this one thanks to the current events in WWE. And personally I’m of the opinion that a women’s tag team title can really only work in an all-women promotion like the joshi leagues. In terms of how women’s wrestling is typically booked in North America, even the biggest promotions tend to only have a certain number of women on hand, which severely limits the combination possibilities for tag teams. And even when you’ve hit a classic tag team like the Iiconics or The Beautiful People you can only have them wear the vents so many times or fir so long before it becomes redundant. For women’s tag title to work you need either a lot more women on any given roster or some sort of open door policy where you bring gonna constant influx of new faces. And even then you’d need sone seriously concentrated booking. It just seems like a concept doomed to never take off on North America.

[HMARK Center]

I don't think you're wrong at the moment. A huge reason for the existence of tag titles is for when you have a big enough roster to handle having people working in tag teams in the first place, and most North American promotions just don't have big enough women's divisions to have them work without cycling through a ton of repeat matchups.

I think things will change a bit in the near future; we're still only really in the first decade of the major sea change in how women's wrestling is generally viewed around here, so it stands to reason that more women with athletic ability will start viewing pro wrestling as a viable career choice and get involved, thus increasing the pool of available talent out there and enabling more promotions to have larger women's rosters, and fingers crossed maybe there can be some more shows that feature exclusively women's wrestling so the door to more ideas like that can be more fully opened. For now, though, it's certainly a challenge.

[fw91]

Not really only because there’s rarely any “Real” ladies teams. Always two people thrown together who aren’t in the main title scene. Could have worked with the iconics, buts the closest we got.

[BlackoutCreature]

For them to work you need three things -
1. A large women's roster.
2. Multiple dedicated women's tag teams, at least a half dozen (and I mean dedicated teams, not makeshift duos).
3. Enough television time so the women can create a diverse mid-card that doesn't solely revolve around the main Women's Title.

For the WWE, they have (1). (2) is possible if they feel like it. I don't think (3) will ever happen outside of NXT. Can't think of any other promotion in recent history that's ever had the tools and desire to get all three done.

[Bo Rida]

WWE could have had a good one before the mass releases if they had one set of belts defended across all brands and booked it well. However yeah it mostly only works in all women promotions. Even then a couple of teams will dominate but I don't seee that as an issue, it's often been the same in the men's division.

Even in TJPW the vibe is different, it's more friendly competion so it's not a problem if a wrestler has their regular partner but sometimes teams with another friend or tries a new team with somebody at random. I don't think that would be so readily accepted in American promotions.

[Hypnosis]

Jun 3, 2022 10:44:07 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Not really only because there’s rarely any “Real” ladies teams. Always two people thrown together who aren’t in the main title scene. Could have worked with the iconics, buts the closest we got.

Looks like Ashley Vox hasn't wrestled since the end of 2021 according to Cagematch, but Delmi Exo's still been active on the indies, so the Sea Stars appear to be on hold for now.

[fw91]

Jun 3, 2022 11:12:57 GMT -5 Hypnosis said:

Jun 3, 2022 10:44:07 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Not really only because there’s rarely any “Real” ladies teams. Always two people thrown together who aren’t in the main title scene. Could have worked with the iconics, buts the closest we got.

Looks like Ashley Vox hasn't wrestled since the end of 2021 according to Cagematch, but Delmi Exo's still been active on the indies, so the Sea Stars appear to be on hold for now.

Sorry, I don’t follow the indies much. Who are these ladies you mentioned?

[Hypnosis]

Jun 3, 2022 11:19:17 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Jun 3, 2022 11:12:57 GMT -5 Hypnosis said:

Looks like Ashley Vox hasn't wrestled since the end of 2021 according to Cagematch, but Delmi Exo's still been active on the indies, so the Sea Stars appear to be on hold for now.

Sorry, I don’t follow the indies much. Who are these ladies you mentioned?

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Jun 3, 2022 11:12:44 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

Even in TJPW the vibe is different, it's more friendly competion so it's not a problem if a wrestler has their regular partner but sometimes teams with another friend or tries a new team with somebody at random. I don't think that would be so readily accepted in American promotions.

This is a key part of it: it's 100% doable. TJPW's full roster is the same size as AEW's women's roster, give or take a few. However, it requires a type of booking that is alien to how most US promotions work right now. The key part is the lack of strict face/heel divide, where TJPW has the one straight-up heel tag team of Neo Biishiki-gun (who don't associate with anyone else, from what I have seen), but most everyone else is a lovable rogue. Everyone is the hero of her own story, but just about everyone also has mischievous asshole tendencies that are apparent in different interactions - which facilitates the above dynamic where everyone is able to mix up who they're teaming with and create more variation.

In contrast, the strict heel/face divide in US wrestling hobbles the ability to make a tag division with a 25-wrestler roster.

It's still not impossible, though. It does require the right booking style, and it probably also requires a low number of defenses and a different philosophy to how teams work. Something like 90's AJPW, where a specific tag team configuration was a different year+-long "era" or phase of a wrestler's long term story, could work quite well for some promotions. And it's not like it's a problem if every single wrestler on a given roster is on a team as long as the booker doesn't treat that as a hold on her singles career.

However, there are also a bunch of infrastructural issues, like how the current lack of women's teams is the result of decades of minimalistic booking of women in general; how the lack of prominent teams in the big leagues disincentivizes women on the indies from specializing in tag team wrestling (because why get good at a dead end skill?); how the focus on youth leads to women getting snapped up and signed more quickly and cuts the amount of time they're spending experimenting with different acts on the indies...y'know, that whole list of things that also affect women's singles wrestling, they're just more pronounced when it comes to teams since the very idea is going to remain difficult to get off the ground until some American promotion actually puts the work in.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Jun 3, 2022 11:19:17 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Jun 3, 2022 11:12:57 GMT -5 Hypnosis said:

Looks like Ashley Vox hasn't wrestled since the end of 2021 according to Cagematch, but Delmi Exo's still been active on the indies, so the Sea Stars appear to be on hold for now.

Sorry, I don’t follow the indies much. Who are these ladies you mentioned?

Pair of sisters, they've worked Impact and AEW a little and have more or less kept women's and intergender tag wrestling a concern on the indies for the last few years.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Jun 3, 2022 10:44:07 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Not really only because there’s rarely any “Real” ladies teams. Always two people thrown together who aren’t in the main title scene. Could have worked with the iconics, buts the closest we got.

That's basically only WWE, though. Other promotions that had had women's tag titles have put a lot more work into it, and there are teams on the indies, not to mention the fact you can always just make a tag team because that's how all tag teams happen. Even the TNA/Impact knockout tag titles have had more actual teams than not.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

They really only work with a large enough roster, with established teams, not just thrown together pairings. In the case of WWE, they should probably have a Women's Tag Title that can be contested between NXT and the main brands. At the moment they have neither the roster size or depth on either NXT or Raw/Smackdown, or the commitment to creating and maintaining actual tag teams that matter.

They have all the TV time they need, but they are piss poor with booking that time.

[tafkaga]

You have to book a tag team division like a tag team division, men's or women's. A tag team division made up of singles wrestlers joining forces to go after the gold is not going to be interesting and not going to work. Tag teams should have a name and coordinated outfits, and they should have an advantage in tag team matches. When they start booking real tag teams like they are just pushovers for pairings of singles wrestlers, it really devalues the whole division.

The Iiconics should have been the dominant tag champs. Let Sasha and Bayley beat them in singles encounters, but when it came to tag team wrestling the Iiconics should have always had an edge on those other duos.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Jun 3, 2022 12:12:40 GMT -5 tafkaga said:

You have to book a tag team division like a tag team division, men's or women's. A tag team division made up of singles wrestlers joining forces to go after the gold is not going to be interesting and not going to work. Tag teams should have a name and coordinated outfits, and they should have an advantage in tag team matches. When they start booking real tag teams like they are just pushovers for pairings of singles wrestlers, it really devalues the whole division.

My thing is, I don't agree that this is the only way to run a tag division. I might be biased because I'm way more into mid-90's AJPW tags than about any other tag team style out there and have been enjoying TJPW lately, but it's possible to make a compelling tag division out of teams that are visibly paired-up singles stars. Team names do help (TJPW has a name for like...every combination, it feels like), and the teams need to be long-term associations at minimum (whether that's a pair who drift in and out of one another's orbit, or who stay together like glue for a year or two), but I don't think every tag division needs to adhere to the same model when there are examples of other ways to do good tag wrestling.

And for the record, I mark for matching outfits! I think they're great, and for US wrestling, I think they're absolutely ideal for a team even when that team is two singles stars. They make the match more easily readable to anyone tuning in for the first time, they look great, it's just an excellent trope.

I think looking at those Japanese models of tag wrestling would be necessary for building a women's tag division in major US promotions today, because there won't be more of those dedicated, matching-outfit, united gimmick, years-long-association teams until there's a path to success for them. Creating that path to success is more easily done with existing top stars, and it would be ideal to have those top stars get usurped by dedicated teams when those teams are ready. Basically: start with your Sasha Banks and Naomi style teams, because that's an easier way to carve out space for a team like the Renegade Twins.

[Jumpin' Jesse Walsh]

Yes, they can. Literally for the exact same reasons men’s tag titles can work.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Of course. You just need a booker who likes tag teams and at least five viable women’s teams.

I don’t think every great team needs to costume match, though. Look at how hot Team Hell No and RKBro got.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Jun 3, 2022 13:02:11 GMT -5 Jumpin' Jesse Walsh said:

Yes, they can. Literally for the exact same reasons men’s tag titles can work.

Thankyou.

[Allie Kitsune]

Jun 3, 2022 9:25:37 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

I don't think you're wrong at the moment. A huge reason for the existence of tag titles is for when you have a big enough roster to handle having people working in tag teams in the first place, and most North American promotions just don't have big enough women's divisions to have them work without cycling through a ton of repeat matchups.

I think things will change a bit in the near future; we're still only really in the first decade of the major sea change in how women's wrestling is generally viewed around here, so it stands to reason that more women with athletic ability will start viewing pro wrestling as a viable career choice and get involved, thus increasing the pool of available talent out there and enabling more promotions to have larger women's rosters, and fingers crossed maybe there can be some more shows that feature exclusively women's wrestling so the door to more ideas like that can be more fully opened. For now, though, it's certainly a challenge.

If someone can really get an All-Women's promotion off the ground, to the point where they have a significant TV deal, and also manage to escape the stigma of the assumption of being segregated from Men's wrestling, I feel like that's where maybe you can build a roster big enough to make tag titles viable.

[Non Banjoble Tokens]

Only if Tessa Blanchard can somehow clone herself and win them.

[pinja]

It's an uphill battle for a lack of history. Wrestling gains a lot from referencing to the past, but at least in Western wrestling, I'm not aware of a tradition of women's tag wrestling. Therefore most women have little experience with the form outside of the occasional tag match when storylines intertwine or some more women are supposed to be featured. Sure they can study tapes just as much as the men can, but theory can only help you so much when there's little to no practice. I think it's really, really hard to establish a "new" form of wrestling today on national tv, when it hasn't developed on a smaller scale already. Put as many experienced female single wrestlers in a tag division and you might get something good in terms of athleticism. But as pure tag matches, they'd still likely lack a lot.