As a tournament is going on right now to crown the AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship, All Elite Wrestling is also introducing yet another championship to its roster, as announced just prior to tonight's episode of AEW Dynamite on November 5, 2025.
Tony Khan took to X with a live video alongside Tony Schiavone to make the announcement, saying that something he revered as a child and he missed was the National Championship, talking about the lineage the old NWA title—which, mind you, is still around, currently held by Mike Mondo, who captured the title from Mims on the 77th anniversary show on August 16th—and how he wants to bring that to AEW.
The inaugural champion will be crowned via a Casino Gauntlet match, scheduled to take place at AEW Full Gear on November 22, 2025. Participants for that match have yet to be announced.
AEW also put out a notice about this on their official website:
History will be made in just a couple of weeks at AEW Full Gear presented by DC, when the first ever AEW National Champion will be determined in a Casino Gauntlet match, as first announced by AEW GM & CEO Tony Khan ahead of Wednesday night’s Dynamite!
The National Championship is a storied, prestigious professional wrestling championship, representing the top prize in the NWA’s Georgia Championship Wrestling, one of the top wrestling promotions in the entire country. But the title hasn’t been seen on TBS since 1986.
That will change following Full Gear on Saturday, November 22, live from Newark, New Jersey! Tune in live when AEW crowns its first AEW National Champion in Full Gear’s Casino Gauntlet match!
Personal Reactions:
Wasn't the entire point of the AEW Unified Championship to clean things up a bit? That combined the International (previously All-Atlantic) title and the Continental Championship. To go with the National Championship now, on top of that, should make it so the International/Continental titles should be officially merged together and renamed something else instead of the "unified" title, which is a dumb name. I guess Tony Khan couldn't go too many months without having a third midcard title, which is kind of insane. There isn't a brand split like in WWE, but even if that were the case, and the unified title were split up again, having an International and a National Championship is redundant. This is messy, and I don't really see the point.
What do you think of this new title being added to the lineup? Who should be the first champion? Drop a comment below with your reactions!