WWE NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler recently spoke with Ronda Rousey’s official website for an interview. Baszler was asked about her personal philosophy on pro wrestling. The former MMA fighter called it storytelling through the medium of fighting.
“Pro wrestling is storytelling through the medium of fighting, I think,” she answered. “I would need to sit with someone for days to really extrapolate on what I mean. But it’s the same folklore that’s been told throughout human history, good guy versus bad guy. The incomparable dragon guarding the treasure and who’s gonna defeat the dragon. These stories that are in every culture, we’re just telling it through the medium of fighting. Pro wrestling doesn’t claim to be anything more than what it is anymore. The show about fighting—and the fights are just the end of the stories or like the bullet points of the story.
“To me, it’s a little different. I guess where I differ in my pro wrestling philosophy than maybe some other people is that I think that, at least to honor my lineage and my coaches, I have to keep it real. You’re not going to see me do very many jumps off the top, flip around and stuff, which has its place in pro wrestling—but you’ll be hard-pressed to see me do very much in a pro wrestling ring that you could not fathom me doing in a UFC cage, for example. And it’s important to me to keep that just to honor my coaches and my lineage.”
Baszler is set to defend her title against Mia Yim at Saturday’s NXT “Takeover: Toronto 2019” event. She was asked if there’s any match she hasn’t had yet in NXT that she hopes to have, or any that she’s excited for. Baszler talked about wanting closure to the Dakota Kai feud, and wanting to face Candice LeRae.
“You know, there’s some stories I really feel like the fans deserve some closure for,” Baszler said. “The Dakota Kai storyline. Before she got injured … I think that was building to be a really good story, and I think that if we call back to that, the fans will really be about all that. Her and I have good chemistry and all that, so I think we could tell a really good story. And then, Candice [LeRae] is an indy wrestling legend, that for whatever reason, our paths have never truly crossed. We’ve actually been booked to wrestle on the indies a couple of times, it just never worked out. Either something came up for one of us or one of us would miss a flight. It was really, really, really weird”
There have been rumors on WWE doing a MMA Horsewomen vs. WWE Horsewomen match for years now, with Baszler, Rousey, Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke vs. Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley and RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. Baszler was asked if she thinks there’s still a demand for this match.
“We can make you want whatever we want to. [Inaudible] Yeah, I think there is. I think that will always be there. That’ll always be there,” she said.
