Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
First off, my apologies for missing a few days. We’ve been dealing with a family emergency that required me to travel from NYC to Florida, and things have been chaotic. Truth be told, I never even had the opportunity to watch Monday Night Raw this week.
But therein lies a bit of confusion on my part, which will be the basis of today’s question.
After last Friday’s announcement of the WWE Women’s United States Championship, I was certain Raw would feature a reciprocal segment from Adam Pearce saying he would be following Nick Aldis in announcing the red brand’s equivalent with a Women’s Intercontinental Championship. Alas, as I checked the results from Raw, as well as next week’s spoilers, there was no such announcement.
My question for you today is “Why do you think WWE held off on the announcement of a women’s intercontinental title? Is there any benefit to this, and do you think the announcement is coming in the future, or will the Women’s US title not have a Raw equivalent?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
Correct me if I’m wrong—and 90% of this question becomes moot if I am—but I don’t believe Nick Aldis said the women’s United States title would be cross-branded. If I remember correctly, he even specifically said SmackDown has a prize, implying this is just going to be on the blue brand. If that is indeed the case, then it seems absolutely wild and crazy stupid to me for the two shows that have 2 hours of television regularly to be the only two with a women’s midcard title (NXT Women’s North American Championship) while Raw, the flagship program with 3 hours once January kicks in again, will not have that.
I can’t see any logic there. If that’s the case, and WWE is just being stupid, then as much as we wouldn’t want to admit it, that’s the answer. Look, people do just make incredibly dumb, misinformed, terrible decisions that lead to problems for more than themselves. #NotMyLessonToLearn – and WWE could very well be making that mistake. It’s not like they haven’t done it before with other titles, like how they had the women’s tag titles be tri-branded and never put NXT into the fold, created NXT women’s tag titles, did jack with them, and then got rid of them.
I don’t think that’s the case, though. Instead, I think WWE does have this planned in the works, but they didn’t announce it for another reason.
One such reason crossed my mind that perhaps the belt itself isn’t ready. Maybe the US title was easier, somehow, to get produced in time, and instead of just waiting to announce both at the same time, they felt an itchy trigger finger for the one and said screw it, we’ll wait another few weeks and it ultimately won’t matter.
Another possible reason could be that WWE doesn’t want to overshadow each of these titles by having fans double-up. Think of it like how they didn’t have the men’s and women’s NXT Breakout Tournament happen at the same time, nor the men’s and women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. Since no matches or any information on the timeline for the women’s US title was announced, WWE could still be formulating a plan for that and might want to stretch out a tournament into December. In the meantime, if fans are focusing on that, and they announce a women’s intercontinental title, it doesn’t seem as special to have the same thing going on for both programs. They could instead wait until the women’s US champion is crowned and go straight into starting a women’s IC championship to follow suit, and have both champions secured by the time we get to Royal Rumble in February.
I can’t imagine we’re talking about not having a women’s intercontinental champion by the time we start The Road to WrestleMania, but that’s also a possibility. One thought that did dawn on me was that WWE could be looking to have this be the title Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill feud over. They’ll be priorities to get on the Mania card, and I’m anticipating Tiffany Stratton versus Charlotte Flair will be for the WWE Women’s Championship, while Rhea Ripley will win the Women’s World Championship and defend it against…someone, I don’t know. And when you throw the women’s tag titles in the mix, too, that’s already 4 women’s matches at Mania. If they have a women’s IC title, would there be anyone worth not only winning it on Raw, but also anyone worth challenging them to justify getting on the Mania 41 card? And if not, and you bypass that, it’ll look like a much lesser championship in comparison to the US title if Belair/Cargill is a featured bout.
If the 2025 WWE Draft goes by and there still isn’t a peep, and the women’s US title isn’t a cross-branded thing, then I’m going to be utterly perplexed, and wondering why WWE decided to go with the US title instead of the intercontinental, at the very least.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
