This weekend at the Insomnia Gaming Festival in Birmingham, England, WWE’s new NXT UK brand will hold an eight woman tournament to crown the inaugural NXT UK Women’s Champion, WWE announced today. This is a belt we knew was coming since they started signing women to the UK brand, but this is the first time we’ve learned how they’re determining the first champion and who’s in the running.
The tournament will include (from left to right in the photo above) Dakota Kai, Xia Brookside, Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm, Jinny, Isla Dawn, and Nina Samuels, as well as Millie McKenzie, who is not pictured. We haven’t seen the brackets or heard any rumors about the booking of the tournament, but it’s hard to look at that promo graphic and not think that Toni Storm is being treated like the top contender in the division.
Interestingly, five of the eight competitors (Toni Storm, Jinny, Xia Brookside, Rhea Ripley, and Isla Dawn) are also competing in the Mae Young Classic, which has already been taped (except for the finals, which happen at Evolution) but won’t air on the WWE Network until after this tournament is over. That means the odds are pretty good that somebody in the MYC will have already been announced as UK Women’s Champion when they show airs, but she won’t be able to carry the belt or acknowledge it, so it won’t have happened yet for her. Pre-taped wrestling really messes with the time-space continuum.
The tournament is also being taped for the upcoming NXT UK series, which presumably will also be aired on the network, but no further details have been released about that.
