Women’s tournament coming to WWE Network this summer

Confirming what has been known for a while, WWE officially announced that a women’s tournament is coming to the Network this summer.

The news was revealed at WWE’s business partner summit in Orlando today. An accompanying article on WWE.com provided the most significant development, which is that the tournament will have a 32-competitor field. That’s the same number that took part in last year’s Cruiserweight Classic.

WWE noted that the field will feature female wrestlers from “around the world” and said that it’s expected that 17 different countries will be represented.

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were joined by WWE’s current Women’s title holders (Bayley, Alexa Bliss, and Asuka) to make the announcement.

The women’s tournament has been in the planning stages for a while. It was previously scheduled to begin in January, but Dave Meltzer reported that it was pushed back due to the company’s United Kingdom Championship tournament plans. Meltzer wrote that it was then tentatively scheduled for May, with Triple H confirming that it would begin in the summer in an interview with Fox Sports’ Wrestling Compadres podcast.