7 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (Sep 27)

3. Rehabbing Shayna

Shayna Baszler Eva Marie
WWE.com

We could grouse about the mishandling of Shayna Baszler for the bulk of the past year, but let’s face facts: If they spend the next week or two having the Queen of Spades lay out women and break bones, then her rehabilitation will be well underway.

Baszler followed up last week’s merking Nia Jax on Monday by assaulting Eva Marie, stomping her arm on the steel steps and leaving her in agony (and the fans chanting, “One more time!”). Back-to-back weeks, Shayna has laid out heels with vicious brutality, returning to a character that seemed to have been extinct – the former NXT Women’s Champion who ruled the roost for aeons.

It remains to be seen if WWE actually commits to this, but seeing Baszler booked strongly two weeks in a row is two more weeks than she’s been booked strongly in the past several months, so there’s that.

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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.