6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (7 August)

2. Was That The Point?

Watching Shayna Baszler struggle to defeat Zoey Stark two nights after beating Ronda Rousey at her own game was, in a word, painful.

Baszler came in sporting a litany of injuries and moved slowly around the ring, taking corner whips at half-speed and even seeming to fall down in slow motion. Stark kept on her and cut off Shayna’s comebacks a few times, but she got distracted multiple times by Becky Lynch drinking lemonade at ringside (that’s an actual thing that happened), finally falling victim to Baszler’s new finisher, Rousey’s Piper’s Pit – and a poorly executed version, at that.

If the goal was to portray Baszler as battered but tough as nails to overcome the self-described “fastest-rising star in WWE,” one could call it mission accomplished, but it didn’t feel like someone selling injuries and working through them. It felt more like someone struggling to make it through a match and maybe shouldn’t have been out there – and not in the sport entertainment sort of way.

It's also worth noting that this was yet another impromptu match made on the fly, this time with Becky actually calling Adam Pearce out to make it official, which he did.