Plans For IWGP Women's Championship Tournament Revealed

Since World Wonder Ring Stardom and New Japan Pro-Wrestling announced the creation of the IWGP Women's Championship, details have been scarce regarding how the promotions plan to crown the first-ever titleholder at NJPWxStardom: Historic x-Over in November. Would they run a tournament? Would two top talents be chosen to face off?

With a little less than three months until the first champion is crowned, Stardom finally revealed its plans for the title in a tweet posted Tuesday morning.

"IWGP Women's Title Tournament," the tweet read. "Round 1 [will take place] Oct 2 in London [and] will feature International talent. This side of the bracket is the international bracket. Round 1 continues on Oct 22 in Tachikawa with Stardom talent. Stardom bracket has 4 wrestlers, international bracket 3 (1 bye)."

Stardom's tweet also provided a graphic of the tournament bracket, revealing that the semi-finals, featuring both Stardom and international talent, will take place on October 23, one day after the first round matches in Tachikawa. The winners will then move on to the finals at Historic x-Over on November 20.

While, as noted, Stardom revealed international talent would be part of the tournament, no specific wrestlers have been announced as of this writing. Around the same time they unveiled the brackets, Stardom announced that at least one major international talent would be taking part in the tournament, with Stardom describing one performer as "an unbelievably famous non-Japanese Joshi wrestler." The promotion is scheduled to announce that performer's identity on Friday, August 27.