The WORST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2025)
5. 2021 | Lilly The Doll Attempts To Kill Shayna Baszler
WWE’s world is not necessarily realistic, but it’s meant to be. When things happen that should not happen, it’s mostly because the television is incredibly contrived.
Supernatural gimmicks do not work in WWE for almost every reason. The execution is largely awful, for starters, and nobody else on the roster seems to care that their understanding of the physical world has been warped beyond recognition. They don’t care that an evil has oozed into our plane of existence, about which we can do nothing but cower and suffer, because they aren’t in a sanctioned programme with the demonic killer clown. That sounds bad, yes, but I have enough problems.
I’m feuding with the Miz!
Lilly was the demonic doll of Alexa Bliss, who in late 2020 had become a spooky child with dark magic powers bestowed upon her by the Fiend. In one absurd visual effect deployed in a Firefly Fun House segment, Bliss was able to elongate her tongue by about 10 times its usual size - think Johnny Gargano licking Triple H’s boot, and you’re close to its scale.
In the spring, Shayna Baszler doubted Lilly’s powers, proclaiming it a “stupid doll”. Lilly then caused a distraction, leading to Baszler losing to sommelier Reggie, and in an infamous Raw segment, Lilly sought revenge for the disrespect by terrorising Shayna backstage.
In an absolutely pathetic scene, Shayna had to pretend to be scared as Lilly embarked on the murder attempt, and Lilly, as a prop, was sh*t. It didn’t look remotely uncanny or grotesque.
Even if this stuff could work in a wrestling context, WWE was the last promotion you’d trust to get it right. By 2021, WWE was the last promotion you’d trust to get anything right.