NXT UK Women's Championship
The NXT UK Women's Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship that was created and promoted by the American promotion WWE. It was defended on the NXT UK [WWE WWE brand extension|brand extension|brand division], a sister brand of WWE's developmental territory NXT based in the United Kingdom. Established on 18 June 2018, the inaugural champion was Rhea Ripley. On 4 September 2022 at Worlds Collide, the title was unified into the NXT Women's Championship, officially retiring the title in the process, with Meiko Satomura recognized as the final champion.
History
In a press conference at The O2 Arena on 15 December 2016, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced plans to establish a United Kingdom-based brand on which professional wrestlers from the country would compete. A men's title, the WWE United Kingdom Championship, was established that same day, however, it was not until mid-2018 when NXT UK was formally established as the United Kingdom-based brand, and sister brand of the American-based NXT. On 18 June during the first night of the 2018 United Kingdom Championship Tournament, the NXT UK Women's Championship, along with the NXT UK Tag Team Championship, was announced for the NXT UK brand. Afterwards, a two-day eight-woman single-elimination tournament was scheduled to crown the inaugural champion during the first tapings of NXT UK. During the 26 August tapings, Rhea Ripley defeated Toni Storm in the tournament final to become the inaugural NXT UK Women's Champion.In January 2020, WWE briefly began referring to the women's championship as the "NXT UK Championship" to bring it on an equal level as the men's title, though reverted to calling it the NXT UK Women's Championship soon after; it remained as NXT UK Women's Championship on the official title history during this time.
In August 2022, WWE announced that the NXT UK brand would go on hiatus and would relaunch as NXT Europe at a later time. As such, NXT UK's championships were unified into their respective NXT championship counterparts. Subsequently, the NXT UK Women's Championship was retired on 4 September 2022 at Worlds Collide. At the event, Mandy Rose defeated Blair Davenport and reigning NXT UK Women's Champion Meiko Satomura in a triple threat match to unify the NXT UK Women's Championship into Rose's NXT Women's Championship, with Satomura recognized as the final NXT UK Women's Champion. Rose went forward as the unified NXT Women's Champion.