Soon after her return to the WWE after a brief hiatus following Wrestlemania 39, Ronda Rousey talked about a potential feud with her tag team bestie Shayna Baszler. As they won the women’s tag team titles and eventually clubbed those belts with the NXT women’s tag team titles, the belief was that the pair would be having a strong run as champions.
But within two weeks of winning the dual set of belts, the team of Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler fell apart, owing to a big betrayal. The latter turned on her former MMA Four Horsewomen partner to start a fresh feud in a hurried manner. WWE was forced to commence the program as they knew that one of them is leaving, soon.
Summerslam 2023: Changes Made To Ronda Rousey’s Match At WWE PLE
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter recently went in-depth into the feud between Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler. Things for their feud were reportedly going as planned but WWE still needed to be in a hurry after learning that Rousey has a fixed date for leaving. At the same time, she always wanted to pay her ode to the Queen of Spades for all her contributions to her pro-wrestling career.
WWE couldn’t do a slow build for Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler
“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,” WON offered about the Ronda Rousey-Shayna Baszler story.
“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.”
During the July 1 WWE Money in the Bank 2023 premium live event, Shayna Baszler turned on her tag team partner Ronda Rousey with a brutal assault before leaving the match. As a result, Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez double-teamed on the solo champion and eventually pinned her to become the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.
As a pair on WWE television, the two previously won a Wrestlemania Women’s Showcase match. Then they clinched a win in another Fatal-4-Way for the vacant Women’s Tag Team Championships in late May. Shortly before Money in the Bank 2023, they successfully unified their WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles with the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships. But that unified title run barely lasted for two weeks.
