Update On WWE Plans To Crown New Women's Tag Team Champions

As reported earlier, Sasha Banks and Naomi were suspended indefinitely by WWE following their walkout from last week's Raw. While making the announcement on Friday's "SmackDown", Michael Cole revealed that a tournament will be held to crown new Women's Tag Team Champions – titles that were vacated as a result of Banks and Naomi's suspensions.

Cole didn't specify when the tourney will be held, or which teams will be participating in it. He was simply quoted as saying, "We will have a future tournament to crown the new WWE Women's Tag Team Champions," shortly after lamenting that Banks and Naomi "let us all down" by staging a walkout during a live TV show. A similar sentiment was echoed by Corey Graves earlier this week on Raw.

In an update, the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that WWE creative has made several different pitches regarding the format of the impending tournament, with at least two pitches calling for a four-team tourney. In one pitch, the four teams discussed are Natalya & Shayna Baszler, Tamina & Dana Brooke, Nikki A.S.H. & Doudrop and Carmella & Queen Zelina Vega. For what it's worth, the team of Carmella and Vega split up following their loss at "WrestleMania 38", so they'd have to reunite to enter the tourney. With the exception of Natalya & Baszler, no other women's team has been used regularly on WWE TV, although Nikki & Doudrop did lose to Banks & Naomi on Raw a few weeks ago.

Natalya & Baszler have been teaming up regularly at WWE live events, and even wrestled Banks & Naomi in a televised tag team title match a few weeks ago on SmackDown.

There is also the possibility of WWE calling up teams from NXT for the tourney to crown new Women's Tag Team Champions.