WWE has a tendency to split tag teams for the most nonsensical of reasons. While the company avoided going overboard during this year's WWE Draft, a few teams didn't leave the weekend unscathed. Case in point, Shotzi Blackheart and Tegan Nox were divided up with Shotzi going to SmackDown and Nox going to Raw. This might be fine for each of their respective singles careers (particularly Shotzi), but this doesn't bode well for a tag team division that is already lacking and could have used a popular team to make a run for the gold. And, make no mistake, Shotzi and Nox were a popular team.
Is this a sign WWE simply doesn't care about its Women's Tag Team Division? While some might argue this is about individual success, it's likely too early to make that argument and WWE made the wrong call here. Furthermore, splitting Nox and Shotzi eliminated the last actual female team WWE had that didn't hold the gold in the last couple of months.
Barely On Television As It Is
Before breaking up a tag team that many believed had a high ceiling, WWE inexplicably pulled them from programming. It wasn't so much an intentional pull, it simply felt like WWE didn't know where to slot them and as such, the team wasn't used on a consistent basis. To be honest, that might be one of the reasons the team was split in the first place.
But, it's fair to argue they were never given a shot. During their debut, they were heavily pushed, picking up a couple of surprising wins. The first-ever match was against the Women's Tag Team Champions in Natalya and Tamina. They won that match. The trend continued for a couple more weeks before Shotzi and Nox were nowhere to be seen. The original idea seemed to be to get the duo over like WWE got Paige over when she debuted against AJ Lee, only WWE didn't follow through.
It didn't make a lot of sense that a team this hot and trending in the right direction would just disappear, but that's exactly what happened. The tank was cool, the fans were into it and the duo didn't completely vanish, but WWE put no real emphasis on continuing their rise up the tag team ranks and chose instead to use the belts as a way to Nikki A.S.H's new character over.
Another Example Of How Little WWE Thinks About The Tag Division
Shotzi and Nox could have come back at any time and gone for the gold again. That door was always open storyline-wise. The WWE Draft essentially assured that won't be happening. And, when you consider that Nattie and Tamina were split up as well, what legitimate teams are there to compete? Nox and Shotzi were essentially it.
If you look at the SmackDown roster now, there's not one female team in the entire group that would contend for a women's tag team championship. While other male teams were drafted together to keep up some sense of competition for the men's straps, WWE could have drafted both women to SmackDown, yet only Shotzi was selected. If you look at Raw, where both women could have been drafted as well, only Carmella and Zelina Vega have a history of teaming together and aren't currently feuding with one another.
The current champions can go wherever they want, but who will step up to take them on? The story essential wrote itself and WWE chose not to go there. Focusing more on what Shotzi might be capable of doing on one brand and Nox potentially getting a shot on the other, WWE will now have to throw new female single competitors together in tag teams just to have Rhea Ripley and Nikki defend their titles once every 30 days.
Why Even Have The Tag Team Titles?
When the Women's Tag Team Championships were first introduced, they meant a lot. You could see the emotion on the face of Sasha Banks and Bayley when they won, and again with The Iiconics when they took them at a WrestleMania. Since then, the closest thing WWE has offered to any emotion surrounding those titles is when Tamina won. Frankly, that was only because it was her first-ever taste of a championship in all of WWE.
Today, the belts are being used to keep A.S.H. a champion, just not the Women's Champion. It's not fair to a team who might want to contend and it certainly isn't fair to Shotzi and Nox who could have had a legit run with the titles and made them mean something.