Women’s Wrestling on TV in 2026

Welcome to year number six of what was supposed to be little project that has grown into something much bigger! I started looking at this back in 2021 because for a few weeks in a row things looked really bleak on Smackdown, like so little time for women’s wrestling that if you blinked you missed it.  Or at least it felt that way, and that led me to start tracking just how much women’s wrestling on TV we were getting.  There have been ups and downs along the way but 2025 gave us a huge breakthrough on every major show, with all time high numbers for ring time and individual match time on every show (RAW, Smackdown, NXT, TNA, and AEW Dynamite). So now in 2026 the big question are we going to continue to move forward or move back? 2025 saw a couple of show format changes – RAW settled in at a two and half hour broadcast length on Netflix and Smackdown went to three hours for half the year before reverting back to it’s usual two hours from July on. In 2026 that is how things are going once again so there’s some consistency from year to year once again.  Now if you’re asking ‘what about promos, backstage segments, etc.?’ the answer is that matches matter and the men never go without matches on TV or in their storylines.

For anyone new, here’s exactly what I’m measuring:

• Number of matches per week (I do not count intergender and mixed tag matches as women’s matches, but do count them for total ring time and participation)
• Number of women wrestling per week
• Total ring time per week
• Average match time (not counting intergender or mixed tag matches)
• Number of main events this year (for this study main events are matches that close the show, not just the last match on the show)
• Number of women with at least 10 matches on one show in a year (RAW, Smackdown, etc)

The last one isn’t reflected here right now but once there have been enough shows to measure them it will be.

I do have one totally subjective category, Weekly Wins.  A Weekly Win is for the show that I felt had the best combination of matches, number of women wrestling, time, and card placement in a week

For a look at last year check out Women’s Wrestling on TV in 2025.

All numbers are for matches completed as of June 10, 2026.

Monday Night RAW

• Matches per week: 1.43 (2025 final number: 1.60)
• Women wrestling per week: 4.39 (2025 final number: 4.04)
• Minutes of women wrestling per week: 15:58 (2025 final number: 17:14)
• Average Match Time: 11:08 (2025 final number: 10:25)
• Main Events: 0
• Women with 10 matches: 2
• Weekly wins: 0

RAW started off with a bang on January 5: three matches, two of them for titles, and two title changes. Things took a dip in February when most of the tag team action shifted to Smackdown and RAW was left with Elimination Chamber qualifying matches and not much else. And then on the first Monday in March they bottomed out and put up a goose egg.  There has been a real sign for optimism lately, though; after the first four weeks of March were pedestrian the next five weeks were a real turnaround to the tune of 2 matches, 5.6 women wrestling and 20:42 of total ring time.   In other words, RAW has been streaky so far this year. From January 12 through March 9 it was pretty bad (1.1, 3.9, 14:26) then from March 16 to April 27 it was great (2, 5.4, 19:39) but so far for the month of May 5 they bottomed out to .8, 2.8, and 8:41 thanks in large to another goose egg on May 5. Year to year they are in a virtual stalemate in the per week categories but haven’t had a women’s match in the main event yet and after 23 weeks they have more weeks (13) with only one or zero women’s matches than they have with two or more (10). Sending Rhea Ripley over to Smackdown hurts on the main event front but they still have Becky Lynch, Iyo Sky, and Liv Morgan whom they could craft something around so there’s really no excuse here.

Smackdown

• Matches per week: 2.18 (2025 final number: 1.92)
• Women wrestling per week: 6.7 (2025 final number: 5.5)
• Minutes of women wrestling per week: 19:49 (2025 final number: 19:20)
• Average match time: 9:07 (2025 final number: 10:03)
• Main Events: 1
• Women with 10 matches:6
• Weekly wins: 12

Smackdown has had more matches and more women wrestling per week in no small part due to the tag team division situation. Thanks to that being mostly living there and the call up of Fatal Influence as a trio, they are the leaders in the clubhouse for matches, women wrestling and total ring time per week by a wide margin, highlighted by a 4 week stretch in February where they averaged a half hour of total ring time. The big question now as we approach the July return to two hours is how long will things change?  With an ever expanding roster (as of today there are 17 active women officially listed for the blue brand) but less time there is going to be a real time crunch and decision are going to have to be made not just among the women but also over how often will we get a second women’s match vs a third or fourth men’s match. The weekly numbers will drop just as they did last year but how far is up in the air.

But enough of that. For the second year in a row the three hour Smackdown has featured the most robust usage of a women’s roster on main roster WWE television ever. If you told anyone in June of 2015 that there would be a whole month where the women got a half hour of ring time every week they would have laughed in your face but look at them now. There is one disappointing number, and that is main events.  So far there’s only been one women’s main event all year, and that came on April 10 at a point where any men’s options had been exhausted already.  (The Bellas vs Nia Jax and Lash Legend was the final match on March 20 but it did not close the show.) Looking at some of the things that they’ve put in main event segments I can’t see why they couldn’t have spared a few more weeks for the ladies. 

NXT

• Matches per week: 1.87 (2025 final number: 2.19)
• Women wrestling per week: 4.52 (2025 final number: 6.44)
• Minutes of women wrestling per week: 18:36 (2025 final number: 19:50)
• Average match time: 9:25 (2025 final number: 8:33)
• Main Events: 9
• Weekly wins: 7

After years of running laps around everyone NXT has finally come back to the pack.  I think that’s largely because several of the women who enabled them to work more and longer matches on TV last year – Roxanne Perez, Giulia, Stephanie Vaquer, and Jordynne Grace – are now on the main roster along with new callups Sol Ruca, Blake Monroe, Fatal Influence, and probably Tatum Paxley. That’s ten major players moving on in less than two years. They appear to be figuring out how to center things around recent arrivals like Kendall Grey, Lizzy Rain and Kali Armstrong backing up some women who are now veterans like Kelani Jordan and Jaida Parker.  The other thing bringing down some of the numbers is the Speed Championship – on the one hand it gives more of the women a thing to compete for but the designed short match times means the time per match average for the show and the total ring time is going to come down. 2024 and 2025 really were a crescendo to what was building since NXT 2.0 – the new women brought in between 2022 and 2023 had enough experience to work longer, and then you sprinkle in some vets and main roster talent and you had the perfect storm to max out on everything. So now it’s time to rebuild but I expect things to pick back as the year comes to a close. In the meantime the one thing NXT continues to do better than anyone is put women in the main event.  Even with everything else down they are still running laps around the other shows in that department, with more (9) than everyone else combined.

Dynamite

• Matches per week: 1.13 (2025 final number: 1.08)
• Women wrestling per week: 4.09 (2025 final number: 3.67)
• Minutes of women wrestling per week: 11:14 (2025 final number: 13:18)
• Average match time: 9:23 (2025 final number: 11:37)
• Main Events: 1
• Weekly wins: 3

Dynamite has stayed firmly entrenched in it’s one match a week habit, although they have had a second match 3 times already this year whereas last year it took them until September to get there. The ring time is down so far, but that’s to be expected when they’ve only had three weeks with a second match to bump up the total ring time. The women’s tag team titles have helped with the number of women wrestling per week, so there’s one big positive. It looks to me like a lot is hinging on Mercedes Mone to return to television; the women averaged four more minutes of total ring time whenever she wrestled on TV in 2025 so I imagine the gap between then and now will close pretty quickly when she’s back. The lack of main events is glaring; only one so far after racking up nine for 2025; once again this looks like they’re waiting on Mone or Toni Storm to come back to beef those up, but that’s a lame excuse given the talent they have there.

TNA

• Matches per week: 1.35 (2025 final number: 1.57)
• Women wrestling per week: 4.09 (2025 final number: 5.68)
• Minutes of women wrestling per week: 12:11 (2025 final number: 12:17)
• Average match time: 7:43 (2025 final number: 7:20)
• Main Events: 4
• Weekly wins: 5

TNA so far is down across the board in most categories. They took a big roster hit when Masha Slamavich got released due to a, ahem, off the field matter as she was entrenched as the backbone of the division. As of right now there is no ace of the division to anchor things from week to week, For all intents and purposes they are rebuilding after a solid 2025.  That being said they still have more TV main events for the women this year than they had for all of last year and more than RAW, Smackdown and Dynamite combined.

2026 almost five month takeaways

Smackdown is the clear leader and has struck a good balance of usage across it’s entire roster. NXT and TNA are rebuilding. RAW is a show of streaks, both good and bad. Dynamite is Dynamite –  much better than from where they started in 2019, but they aren’t looking like they’re moving the ball any further forward right now after two years of major progress. After almost five months this is what the rankings look like:

1. Smackdown (2.1 matches, 6.7 women wrestling, 19:49 total ring time)
2. NXT (1.9, 4.5, 18:36)
3. RAW (1.4, 4.4 ,15:58)
4. TNA (1.3, 4.1, 12:11)
5. AEW Dynamite (1.1, 4.1, 11:14)

Going forward the big questions are:

1. How will Smackdown manage going back to two hours?
2. Can RAW find some consistency?
3. Will NXT start doing more as their new nucleus comes together?
4. Can TNA settle on a solid rotation that allows them to build?
5. How much will Dynamite’s ring time go back up when Mercedes Mone returns?

2025 was so good that there was nowhere to go but down, but there are a few red flags that can’t just be handwaved as a reversion to the mean.  In 2026 there is no excuse for anyone with a two hour wrestling show to have zero women’s matches any week out of the year, but it’s already happened twice on RAW and once on TNA.  The rosters are too big and too talented; even when you need to preserve people who are wrestling on a PLE/PPV in a few days every company has a deep well of women in reserve who can work those weeks.  To my knowledge there’s been one week of TV in the entire time I’ve covered this where there have been zero men’s matches on anyone’s show (an advertised ladies night on NXT back in 2022), even weeks where creative is cooked coming off a PLE.  The lack of main events is also concerning; RAW has zero far while Smackdown had their first and so far only one on April 10.  In 2025 they’d both had a couple by this point, and all the other shows except NXT and TNA are behind last year’s pace of booking women in main events. Again, there’s too much depth and too great of talent for this to be going on. Do better, folks.