5 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (March 1)

1. A Killer Gets Murdered

Shayna Baszler Charlotte Flair
WWE.com

A year ago, Shayna Baszler demolished five other women inside the Elimination Chamber and seemed like an unstoppable monster. A year ago, Baszler versus Charlotte Flair might have legit headlined a WWE PPV.

On Monday, Baszler versus Flair was a 3-minute Raw special, a glorified squash of one-half of the current tag champs to remind us all how amazing and incredible Charlotte really is. And just to drive the point home, Shayna and Nia Jax pummeled Charlotte before the match, roughing her up to make it tougher – and presumably at a full minute to the match.

In all honesty, what was the point of that? Shayna actually could have been a serious obstacle for Flair at Fastlane. Baszler had a legit claim for the Raw Women’s Championship having injured Asuka in the first place, and Charlotte is Charlotte. Boom, PPV match that dazzles, Flair wins and goes to WrestleMania.

But no, 3 minutes and an already-softened Flair had outsmarted Nia Jax and dispatched with Baszler. The unstoppable monster of a year ago is now a pushover.

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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.