How Alexa Bliss Made History Within Her First Year On The WWE Main Roster
Alexa Bliss has been extremely successful since arriving at WWE, but she didn't get there right away. Bliss began her sports entertainment career in "NXT" in 2013, playing a character who looked like what might happen if Tinkerbell joined the cheerleading squad. While she won her first televised match against WWE veteran Alicia Fox, Bliss spent the majority of her early "NXT" tenure losing to the likes of Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Bayley. In 2015, Bliss turned heel and began managing the team of Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy, who won the "NXT" Tag Team Championship under her guidance, but Bliss herself was never able to capture championship gold in "NXT," and in 2016, she abandoned Blake and Murphy and made her way up to the main roster.
2016 was the year WWE reinstituted the brand extension, splitting its roster into exclusive "WWE Raw" and "WWE SmackDown" performers via a "draft." The draft included "NXT" talent, and Bliss was drafted to the "SmackDown" brand. In "NXT," Bliss had played second fiddle to the celebrated Four Horsewomen, but she thrived on the main roster, and in her very first year, she managed to accomplish a major historical feat before any of the Horsewomen had the chance.
Bliss was the first to win both the SmackDown and Raw Women's Championships
Due to the brand split, the WWE Women's Champion at the time, Charlotte, was drafted to "Raw," which meant that her title transformed into the first "Raw" Women's Championship. This left "Smackdown" without a title to represent the women; however, there would be a simple solution, as at Backlash 2016, Becky Lynch became the inaugural "SmackDown" Women's Champion after winning a six-pack elimination challenge. It's ironic in hindsight that Bliss was the first woman eliminated from that match, as she defeated Lynch for the title in a tables match three months later at WWE TLC. Apart from a single week, Bliss would hold the championship until WrestleMania 33, where she lost it to Naomi in another six-pack challenge.
Following WrestleMania 33, WWE held a Superstar Shake-Up which resulted in Bliss heading over to the red brand. In her first match on "Raw," Bliss won a number one contender's match for the "Raw" Women's Championship, and less than two weeks later, she found herself the new Raw Women's Champion, defeating Bayley at Payback 2017. In doing so, Bliss became the first woman in WWE history to hold both the "Raw" and "SmackDown" Women's Championships, beating out every one of the vaunted Horsewomen for the honor. She may not have won titles in "NXT," but nobody in the WWE women's division rocketed to the top of the main roster faster than Alexa Bliss.