In an interview with the Fox Sports' Wrestling Compadres podcast, WWE COO Paul "HHH" Levesque confirmed that a WWE women's tournament is happening this year, likely this summer.

The podcast aired a clip from the interview Wednesday with the full interview set to be released this Friday. You can listen below, starting at the 21:30 mark.

Subscribers to this site have known of these plans for quite some time, both from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and Wrestling Observer Radio. Dave Meltzer originally reported the long-discussed tourney was tentatively earmarked for May on the WWE Network.

Levesque said that the difficult thing has been trying to find the right time for the tournament, given their current schedule and the ever-changing landscape of WWE. He mentioned the UK tournament fit perfectly prior to the Royal Rumble and that he is hoping the women's tourney can happen this summer.

The plan is to recruit very similarly to the WWE Cruiserweight Classic where they "scour the globe" and find some talents that may be flying under the radar, increasing the talent pool for WWE as a whole.

Levesque was also asked about intergender matches and while he understands that they may work for some smaller groups as shock entertainment value, he didn't think the WWE fanbase would be ready for a male to be seen beating up a woman in the ring. He prefers the women being able to stand out on their own athletic merits.