Asuka Given New Belt On SmackDown, Renamed As WWE Women's Champion

The era of having both a Raw and SmackDown Women’s Champion is officially over. After several fans were apprehensive about a potential title exchange between the Raw Women’s Champion Asuka and the SmackDown Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley, both of whom were on the opposite brands of their respective titles, people can now relax as that will not happen.

On the June 9 edition of SmackDown, Asuka was presented with a brand-new championship belt, with her being renamed as the new ‘WWE Women’s Champion’. The design of her belt is pretty much the carbon copy of Roman Reigns’ new championship, with a gold centre plate but this time with a white strap, as opposed to Reigns’ black strap.

This follows the trend of WWE’s men’s and women’s world title looking exactly the same, and one can assume that over on Raw, Rhea Ripley will be given a ‘Women’s World Heavyweight Championship; which takes the design of Seth Rollins’ new world title. Much like on the men’s side of things, it isn’t clear what lineage the new belts will have, whether they will carry on the existing Raw and SmackDown Women’s Title lines or have their own.