Update On Ronda Rousey-Shayna Baszler Tag Team Split
Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler are no longer a WWE tag team as new details have emerged about why the split happened when it did.
One of the most surprising results at WWE Money in the Bank last Saturday in London saw Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler lose the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles to Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez.
Going into that match, most people predicted that Rousey & Baszler would win since they just won the titles one month earlier, so the assumption was they would hold the titles for at least a few months. Nope. It didn’t happen. Instead, Baszler randomly attacked Rousey during the match and Rodriguez/Morgan hit their finishing moves with Morgan pinning Rousey to be the new champions.
On the July 3rd edition of WWE Monday Night Raw, Shayna Baszler cut a scathing promo ripping into Ronda Rousey for being a terrible person and the fans were cheering Baszler for it.
It was mentioned during the week by Dave Meltzer that Ronda Rousey made the call to break up the team because she had a “hard out” date for when she wants to wrap up her career as a regular superstar in WWE.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (available for subscribers), Dave Meltzer wrote more about the situation and how Ronda Rousey had a lot of influence on what happened.
“The match was really a backdrop for Baszler’s turn on Rousey. It was clearly a heel style turn, but the decision was made, clearly from television, to have Baszler be the babyface, with the idea she had to pay her dues, work in front of 30 people, set up rings and such while Rousey walked in and her first match was at WrestleMania. It’s playing on the idea that Rousey didn’t deserve to be pushed in WWE, even though nobody ever did more to help women’s wrestling and fighting than Rousey in the big picture.”
“The Rousey & Baszler tag team was always put together for the storyline is a break-up and a feud. That dated back to when Rousey made the call of when she was leaving. It’s not known the date, whether it’s right after SummerSlam or they’ll take the program longer. But Rousey gave the office a finishing date of this run, and asked to be put in a tag team with Baszler and to feud with her.”
“Baszler helped Rousey greatly, and really taught her a lot about pro wrestling when the two lived together and would watch wrestling together, and attend shows together like at PWG. So Rousey wanted to pay her back by giving her a program that she otherwise wasn’t going to get. Between Rousey’s injury and other changes with the office being slow to get it started, they had no time to really establish them as tag champs or do the traditional slow build that was the original idea. The idea was to give them a lengthy reign and then do the split, but that didn’t work out.”
Currently, the Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler match is penciled in for SummerSlam on August 5th in Detroit. It is one of four women’s matches that are likely set to take place during the show.
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