WWE still has work to do with raising prestige of Women’s Tag Titles

At TLC, the WWE Women’s Tag Titles were defended in the pay-per-view’s eponymous match, but the belts still aren’t where they need to be prestige-wise.

This past Sunday at WWE Tables, Ladders, and Chairs (TLC), the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships took center stage…sort of. Yes, we saw The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) defend the titles in the main event against the reluctant team of RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in the main event, but what should’ve signified a significant uptick of importance for WWE’s newest titles felt like something less than.

Perhaps it’s because WWE presented the titles as an ancillary sideshow to the storylines the company actually wanted to get over. Leading up to the show, the Tag Titles were merely a pretense to shoehorn Flair and Lynch together for their grudge match with Asuka and Kairi Sane.

They also created a convenient excuse for WWE to book the four in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match that didn’t mesh with the trajectory of the feud. And once these talented ladies were done ravaging each other in said match, WWE wasted no time directing the cameras to a show-closing brawl featuring Roman Reigns and King Corbin.

Main event spot aside, the message was clear: the company still sees the Women’s Tag Team Titles as a side dish to the main course offerings they want to serve their fans. Lynch further drove that point home this past Monday on RAW when she equated her inclusion into the tag division as a burial and a form of protection by “the powers that be” in an otherwise brilliant promo.

Since Bayley and Sasha Banks all but willed those championships into existence this past February, WWE has treated the distaff tag straps with the same respect as the men’s versions: very little.

This was proven when WWE cut Banks and Bayley’s potentially fruitful inaugural title run short by having The IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce)– a comedy team that loses more than the New York Knicks — beat them at WrestleMania 35. Billie Kay and Peyton Royce then spent the next four months losing match after match before Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross held them for a forgettable two-months. And let’s not forget about WWE having Banks bury the belts during a promo a few months ago, which no one who knew how badly she and Bayley fought for those titles belts believed anyway.

Things have gotten better since Asuka and Sane misted their way to the gold — we even got a long awaited title match on NXT — but as TLC and Lynch’s promo a couple of nights ago showed, WWE still has work to do if they actually want to get these belts over.

Whether it’s a belt as respected as the IWGP Heavyweight Title or a gimmick belt like the 24/7 Title (ok, maybe not that one), wrestling championships and the weight they hold depends as much on the caliber of the stars that want the belt as it does the quality of matches waged for the gold.

If WWE wants the Women’s Tag Titles to be seen as a valuable prize worth winning, the top stars in the division have to express that in their promos instead of treating them as some form of relegation. Present the champions as legitimate top workers instead of booking them in competitive handicap matches. And when you put the champs in the main event, don’t use it to set up an angle for a feud that itself feels like a placeholder program.

If this company devotes enough time and energy to raising Women’s Tag Titles’ credibility, they would have a pair of belts that fans would tune in to see their favorite wrestlers fight for, but have to book the championships and the ladies that hold them consistently. Putting them on The Kabuki Warriors and having them main event a pay-per-view was a good start, but they still have a long way to go.