4 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 18)

4. So Much For Queen Of Spades

Shayna Baszler Doudrop
WWE.com

So much about WWE’s booking confuses the hell out of this writer.

For the past few weeks, WWE seems to be trying to desperately rehab Shayna Baszler as a killer. You know, how she debuted on Raw nearly two years ago before becoming the queen of distraction rollup victims. When Baszler entered the Queen’s Crown tournament, you got the feeling they were going to use this to heat her up: have her run through the field, get crowned and feud with Charlotte Flair on SmackDown over who the real queen is. (Both women already have “queen” nicknames.)

And then Shayna lost her semifinal match to Doudrop. In less than 3 minutes. By getting rolled up while applying the Kirafuda Clutch.

Just like that, Baszler is headed to SmackDown on Friday as a loser, derailing some (or a lot, it remains to be seen) of the momentum built up by injuring Nia Jax and Eva Marie. Why? Why rebuild her to then have her lose this tournament like that?

Maybe we should just stop trying to apply logic to anything WWE does anymore.

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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.