4 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 28)

5. Jobbing Out Tag Challengers

Shayna Baszler
WWE.com

There are conflicting ways to think about Monday night’s match between Dana Brooke and Shayna Baszler.

On the one hand, Brooke and Baszler had a competitive match that saw Dana hang with the former NXT Women’s Champion for a while before succumbing to a Kirafuda Clutch. Shayna probably needed the win more because of her pedigree and the fact she and Nia Jax are in the hunt to reclaim their WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.

But Baszler didn’t just beat Brooke. She then singlehandedly laid out Dana’s partner Mandy Rose, leaving a tag team – the only other “credible” duo on the Raw roster – laying with Jax nowhere to be found for backup.

It’s not the worst thing in the world – Baszler has the potential to be dominant at any point and could contend for the Raw Women’s Championship itself. But it doesn’t do the “Sexy Muscle Friends” any favors that both got put to sleep by one wrestler.

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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.