4 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 15)

8. Dumbing It Down

Shayna Baszler Lana
WWE.com

God bless Lana, she tries hard. But watching her “wrestle” Shayna Baszler on Monday night, makes you simply wonder: where the hell is Rhea Ripley (and any other capable wrestler not battling on NXT)?

Baszler seemed to be wrestling at one-quarter speed on Monday to give Lana a chance to keep up, but even then, she seemed overmatched. She’s tentative, timid and not very convincing. Shayna is a killer in the ring, and watching her stumble around in slow-motion so Lana can slo-o-ow-ly roll her up for a 2 count is just painful and embarrassing.

Worse, Lana and Naomi are supposedly #1 contenders for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship right now, so we’re supposed to take them as a threat. Lana is certainly trying, but she simply shouldn’t be on TV wrestling right now, and certainly not in matches where she should be taken as anything resembling a credible threat to someone like Baszler.

Mickie James and Nikki Cross aren’t doing anything on Raw right now. Where is Ripley? And is there any reason that women like Santana Garrett, Mercedes Martinez and Toni Storm need to still be in NXT?

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.