History
The WWE Women's Championship was originally known as the NWA World Women's Championship of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In 1956, The Fabulous Moolah became the inaugural champion on September 18 as recognized by World Wrestling Entertainment. The WWE Women's Championship is descended from the original NWA World Women's Championship of the National Wrestling Alliance, which is still active today. In 1983, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) disaffiliated with the NWA and recognized then-NWA World Women's Champion The Fabulous Moolah as the promotion's World Women's Champion. Additionally, the WWF also recognized Moolah's reign at the time as a continuation of her first NWA World Women's Championship reign, which occurred in 1956, resulting in the promotion not recognizing other reigns that occurred during the title's existence in the NWA. Thus, The Fabulous Moolah's reign is considered to have lasted 27 years by the promotion. The WWF soon renamed their recognition of the title as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Women's Championship.
In 1990, the Women's Championship became inactive after Rockin' Robin vacated the championship following her departure from the WWF. Then in December 1993, the title was reactivated with Alundra Blayze winning a tournament for the vacant Women's Championship. The Women's Championship, however, became inactive again when Blayze unexpectedly signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1995 while still champion, forcing her to relinquish the title. The Women's Championship was reactivated again in September 1998 when Jacqueline Moore defeated Sable to win the title.
After the WWF/WWE name change in 2002, the championship was subsequently referred to as the WWE Women's Championship. With the WWE Brand Extension, the WWE Undisputed Championship and WWE Women's Championship became the only titles allowed to be defended on both the Raw and SmackDown brands, while all other titles were exclusive to a single brand. Later, the Women's Championship became exclusive to only the Raw brand.
On June 24, 2007, Candice Michelle became the first ever former WWE Diva Search contestant to win the Women's Championship by defeating then champion Melina at Vengeance. The Women's Championship remained the sole championship contested by women, until July 4, 2008 when a counterpart to the championship, called the WWE Divas Championship, was created for the SmackDown brand.
On April 13, 2009, the Women's Championship became exclusive to the SmackDown brand when reigning champion Melina was drafted from Raw to SmackDown during the 2009 WWE Draft. On June 28 at The Bash (2009) pay-per-view, Michelle McCool became the first ever Diva to have held both the WWE Women's Championship and the WWE Divas Championship in her WWE career. Other divas that have held both the Women's and Divas Championship include Mickie James, Melina, Beth Phoenix and Layla. Michelle McCool and Melina are the only women in WWE history to record multiple reigns with both Women's and Divas Championships.
It was announced on the August 30 edition of Raw that the championship would be unified with its counterpart, the Divas Championship, at the Night of Champions event. This match was won by Michelle McCool and unified both titles creating the Unified WWE Divas Championship, thus making the Women's Championship defunct as the unified title follows the lineage of the Divas Championship.
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