It had been rumored for a long while that All Elite Wrestling would at some point create a set of tag team titles for the women's division, which finally came true when Tony Khan announced on September 24, 2025 that the AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship was indeed a thing, coming soon to the roster, and that it would be determined in a tournament. Details were sparse, but it was at least officially announced.
It's a historic moment in #AEW as President + CEO @TonyKhan unveils the brand new AEW Women’s World Tag Team Championships!
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) September 25, 2025
Watch #AEWDynamite LIVE on TBS & HBO Max pic.twitter.com/U7S7bB2Lgg
It took an entire month just to get the tournament bracket, eventually being revealed that the eight teams fighting for the titles would be Queen Aminata and Jamie Hayter, The Sisters of Sin (Julia Hart and Skye Blue) Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron (The Babes of Wrath), Athena and Mercedes Moné, Alex Windsor and Riho, "Timeless" Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa, Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford, and TayJay (Anna Jay and Tay Melo).
Over the course of that tournament, which has gone on for now a full month since that bracket was revealed, Ford was replaced by Marina Shafir, and we've gotten only to this week's episodes of AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision taking place at the Agganis Arena in Boston, Massachusetts having two quarterfinals matches (being Windsor and Riho against Storm and Shirakawa, and Bayne and Shafir against TayJay). This will set up a semifinals match at an unannounced date, along with The Sisters of Sin against The Babes of Wrath as the other semifinals bout, also missing a date.
So what is with the long, drawn-out methodology for these titles? Why is it taking so long to crown the inaugural champions and do a tournament that only involved eight teams from the start and has done a grand total of two matches so far over the course of two months?
Stalling to start the tournament is one thing. We know Tony Khan has done that in the past, as he put another women's title on hiatus due to not being able to book it with the wrestlers he wanted to use. That would be technically in Ring of Honor, rather than AEW, but the ROH Women's Pure Championship is still under his creative direction and a great example of his booking style. Clearly, it was more important for him to do it right rather than to do it now, and that might have been the approach for the AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship titles, too.
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| The AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship title belts. Source: Instagram |
The caveat to all that, though, is that Khan didn't need to announce these belts yet, either, nor take so long to do each step of the way. The entire tournament could have been done over the course of October, let alone also the weeks in November that have passed by. After all, WWE is going to do a sixteen man tournament—double the size—over the course of just about three weeks to determine John Cena's final opponent for WWE Saturday Night's Main Event with The Last Time is Now tournament. AEW has both Dynamite and Collision, and could have easily fit more of these bracket matches across those lineups.
Even stranger is that nearly a month and a half after these belts had already been announced, another new championship was announced, with the AEW National Championship coming out of nowhere. And when is that belt's first title-holder being decided? This Saturday at AEW Full Gear in Newark, New Jersey at the Prudential Center. In just a few episodes, that belt will have been announced, the participants determined, and the inaugural champion decided, while the AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship is not currently scheduled to have any bearing on the Full Gear pay-per-view at all.
That means it will be lapped by the AEW National Championship, and then, the Continental Classic tournament will begin, heading into the next pay-per-view event, which is AEW Worlds End, set to go down December 27th at the NOW Arena in Chicago. The focal point of that event will be the AEW Continental Championship (and seemingly, the AEW Unified Championship as a whole, since that is currently held by Kazuchika Okada, who also holds the AEW International Championship).
To crown the new AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship for the first time on the same event that revolves more around another title, after another belt was also announced and crowned at Full Gear, just doesn't seem like the right call. That's especially true when you realize that's yet another month plus away from now, meaning it would have taken three full months just to settle on these women's tag team champions!
After the November 19th Dynamite and Collision's quarterfinals matches, that only leaves three more contests to crown the new champions. Realistically, that should be taken care of within two weeks at most, as the two semifinals can take place next week, and the finals the week after.
One issue with that, though, is that there are a handful of other "special" episodes of Dynamite or Collision coming up, but none of them are in the next two weeks. Wouldn't it be strange if the titles are crowned on a regular episode, and then, something special comes up right after and that is filled with matches that aren't as important, or make the crowning of these inaugural champions look less valuable?
Looking at the AEW events schedule, on November 26th, AEW will be in Nashville. December 3rd will be in Fishers, Indiana. After that is ROH Final Battle, which has no bearing on this at all and would be a strange spot, but is taking place the day before a Columbus, Ohio edition of Collision. Then, Dynamite comes to Atlanta's Gateway Center Arena on December 10th.
The real target date that could be looked at would be either the December 13th episode of Collision in Cardiff, Wales, or the December 17th episode of Dynamite which will take place at the Co-op Live in Manchester, England.
Being in the United Kingdom would call for some special matches to be booked. Granted, that could just be more matches like the $1 million trios match and the $200,000 four-way at Full Gear. Maybe Tony Khan throws a bunch of cash at The Young Bucks and they can take it to a grosvenor casino and keep up the gimmick where they try to double their funds, for better or worse.
But what's strange about that is that the next two shows are the next official specials, being December 20th's AEW Dynamite on 34th Street an December 21st's Christmas Collision, both at the Manhattan Center in New York. That leads right into AEW Worlds End, which goes to the December 31st AEW Dynamite New Year's Smash, meaning back-to-back specials not including anything for the UK shows, which are still a month away, anyway!
On the most recent Smack Talk podcast, it was theorized that AEW Winter is Coming (which hasn't been booked yet for 2025) could be designated to those UK episodes to give them a special moniker and crown the champions, particularly if the plan is to put them on Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa, given how Storm is from new Zealand, but made her name on the UK wrestling circuit. She would effectively be treated as a hometown girl, despite not being from England.
That's cutting it close to AEW Worlds End, and it means this tournament would still be going on while the Continental Classic was underway, which makes this not exactly the safest bet as far as when to predict the champions will be crowned.
More than likely, the semifinals will take place next week, with the finals the week after, and the Continental Classic will start the week after (on the December 6th Collision or December 10th Dynamite). Then, it will be a mad rush to do the entire tournament over just two weeks, loading up those episodes and scrambling to do something that didn't need to be breezed by had Khan taken care of this women's tag title tournament in a more efficient way and been finished with it by Full Gear, at the latest.
Stay tuned to Smark Out Moment for more information on the future of this tournament when it is revealed.
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