WWE NXT North American Championship Should Be an Intergender Title

WWE is trying intergender wrestling again. NXT has a new championship and great female wrestlers. How about an intergender title?

 Intergender wrestling is one of WWE’s biggest blindspots when it comes to innovation. Skeptical management and wrong-headed comparisons between intergender wrestling and domestic violence has led to company-wide caution about intergender competition.

While intergender wrestling did occur sporadically in the Attitude Era, the new PG-era of WWE programming has made it into a no-go, except for under very special circumstances (though the less said about Ellsworth winning Money in the Bank, the better).

Despite all of this, intergender wrestling has happened at WWE before, and it seems to be something they’re exploring again. They recently tested the waters with some brief intergender spots during the Mixed Match Challenge. 

If you aren’t a Facebook Live watcher, perhaps you caught the slightly less subtle intergender spots that have featured Ronda Rousey on Raw. This all culminated in a surprise intergender highlight at WrestleMania, where she tossed Triple H’s butt across the ring for five delightful minutes.

WWE might not be ready to give the green light to intergender matches across the company, but it it definitely feels likely that we’ll be seeing more of it soon. Luckily for WWE, they have a perfect venue to try new things before pushing them out to a wider audience, and a perfect excuse to try it now. NXT debuted a new title in New Orleans: the North American Championship. William Regal is claiming that this changed the landscape of NXT forever. I think they could stand to do a little more landscaping. I think that the North American Championship title should be an intergender title. Here’s why.

Nobody Cares About This Title Yet Anyway

So…it’s just a new title? OK.

Winning a title is obviously an achievement, but history is what makes a title interesting in the long run. Right now this title has no history in WWE except for the fact that Adam Cole has won it. (It isn’t even the only title Cole currently holds, as Undisputed Era are the current tag-team champs.) Making it WWE’s first intergender title would build excitement and prestige, and draw curious viewers into its storylines. There are no real downsides to experimenting with a new title, unless you don’t want to see Velveteen Dream fight Bianca Belair. And if you don’t want to see that, I don’t know what to tell you, because it would be awesome.

NXT’s Women’s Division Is Already Underutilized- and Titles Are A Part Of The Problem

For better or worse, WWE’s TV programming is built around titles: who has them, who wants them, and what they’re willing to do to get them. If you aren’t in the title picture, or aren’t being set up to get into the title picture, you can kiss your TV time goodbye.

No wrestlers suffer more for this than WWE’s women’s division. WWE loves to brag about giving women the spotlight via history-making matches at pay-per-views, but their weekly shows don’t seem to have gotten the memo. This issue makes more sense when you consider the lack of gold available for women in the company.

In the WWE system, women can currently only compete for three of the seventeen titles available. Their weekly time is seemingly limited as a result. This is not a good look for a company that claims its female competitors are just as respected as the male ones, and have earned access to the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

You can see this disparity play out on the weekly shows, but especially NXT, which has the shortest run time. There is typically one women’s match for every three to four men’s singles or tag team titles matches on NXT, and there are weeks that go by where we don’t see the women compete at all.

This is just disappointing from a show that gave us Asuka and the Four Horsewomen. It needs to be fixed.

There are lots of ways that WWE could address this (such as giving us a women’s tag team division already). But I like the idea of intergender titles in particular because it would mean that WWE is ready to put its money where its mouth is in a big way. If they think their women’s wrestlers are just as good as their male wrestlers, and have just as much standing at WWE as male competitors do, why not let them prove it?

It would also allow women to integrate into the larger NXT plotlines that most viewers are following in more natural ways. Imagine being able to pay off a feud between Candace LeRae and Tommaso Ciampa with a PPV battle for Johnny Gargano’s honor via a title, or Nikki Cross proving herself as a member of Sanity by taking on their enemy Adam Cole to bring some gold back to the team. The storytelling possibilities are endless, and the matches would be epic.

Women in WWE Already Know How To Do This, So Why Not Let Them?

Aside from fantasy booking, one of the most compelling reasons to have an intergender belt on NXT is because there is an astounding amount of female talent on their roster, and most of those women have a wealth of experience as intergender competitors.

Candace LeRae is the most famous for her intergender wrestling record, but most women recruited for NXT these days have at least some experience with intergender competition. Kairi Sane’s killer elbow drop got its American TV debut not on NXT, but in a gauntlet match with Pentagon Dark on Lucha Underground. Ruby Riott championed intergender wrestling throughout her career in the indies, and now she’s a breakout star on SmackDown.

The more that WWE recruits female talent from other companies, the more female superstars they’ll have with intergender experience. Instead of ignoring that, why not make it a strength of the company and give their superstars a unique way to shine?

Intergender Titles Have Given Other Companies Some Of Their Most Memorable Moments

As intergender competition becomes more accepted in the wrestling industry, some companies are making titles intergender as well. Intergender title fights are dynamic showcases for a different kind of wrestling than we usually see, and allow excellent wrestling storytelling as well as incredibly compelling matches.

On TV, Lucha Underground is probably the most famous franchise doing this right now. Their willingness to allow intergender competition for titles gave us Ivelisse’s barn-burner match against Mil Muertes, one of the most talked-about matches of season two.

In the indies, Kimber Lee’s quest to win the Chikara Grand Championship actually did make history when she became the first women to hold that title- and the first woman to ever win a major non-female title in an indie promotion.  Perhaps inspired by this, intergender title matches are becoming more common in multiple promotions. 

On WrestleCircus, intergender wrestling happens at nearly every show. The Sideshow title is open to all competitors, male or female.  Tessa Blanchard had one of her best matches of the year defending her title against Brian Cage.

At FEST Wrestling, all titles are intergender, which lends an element of excitement and surprise to both title defenses and number-one contender contests. Previous champions Heidi Lovelace (hey, there’s Ruby Riott again!) and Su Yung held their own against male and female competitors throughout their title runs.  

When it’s used well, intergender wrestling can be compelling storytelling and add great elements to a title picture. Whether Vince McMahon likes it or not, intergender wrestling is becoming more accepted, and it won’t be long before intergender titles are an industry standard. WWE can stick its head in the sand, or it can get out there and innovate.

Next: Who were The Biggest Winners Of WrestleMania Weekend?

As things stand, I don’t think WWE is going to be a leader in this field, but I would love to be proven wrong. Right now they have a developmental show, a title that needs some intrigue, and a bunch of talented women that need something to do. The ball is in your court, Hunter. Please make this happen.