"The titles live and die with me" - Current champion blasts the WWE roster ahead of SmackDown
Roman Reigns, Gunther, and Austin Theory are all running strong as WWE's top champions. Their reigns have one thing in common: longevity.
New Women's Tag Team Champions Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler could fall into this category if they retain their belts for the remainder of the year. But first things first, they are also looking to win the NXT Women's Tag Team Championships tonight on SmackDown.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Shayna Baszler brought up her history with the tag team belts while also crediting Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn as a great team. However, The Submission Magician emphasized that the pressure to make the women's tag team division relevant is on them:
"The pressure is on me and Ronda. If you were to take a poll, no one thinks anyone can beat me and Ronda. We have everything to prove, they have nothing to lose."
Shayna Baszler continued:
"On top of that, the meaning of those titles, if people don’t remember, I had [the WWE Women’s Title] before, and we were wrecking shop across all three brands during the COVID era, even though nobody remembers that. For whatever reason, they’re like, ‘Oh man, Bayley was the workhorse. She worked on all three...’ We did it too. All three brands. Went to NXT, beat the snot out of them so bad they were like, ‘We want tag titles too,’ and made their own. The titles live and die with me," she said. [H/T: Fightful]
Shayna Baszler and Ronda Rousey want to work WWE NXT
The Women's Tag Team Champions could walk out of Friday Night SmackDown tonight as the brand new undisputed champions of the women's tag team division. As per the latest reports, WWE higher-ups have held talks to bring Ronda Rousey to NXT in order to boost the ratings, as Seth Rollins' title defense against Bron Breakker was a success.
Further elaborating on the importance of the tag team division in NXT, Shayna Baszler stated:
"They are only there because we decided to make NXT viable with a tag team and division, and now full circle, me and Ronda set out from day one, talking about this journey, we want to defend these every week, all the time. Let’s get some tag teams going and get a real division. We want to do this every week, and we want more than four weeks of work. That’s why Ronda said in that promo, we were going to wreck shop too much so we had to look towards NXT. There is no taking away that they are a great tag team, obviously. They work well together, they are the champions, but me and Ronda have been a team since 2013." [H/T: Fightful]
You can read more about fans reacting to Rousey's potential involvement in NXT going forward here.
Could the NXT Women's Tag Team Champions pull off a massive upset as they take on Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler on WWE SmackDown tonight? Sound off in the comments section below.