Remember when WWE was really playing up the possibility of the MMA Four Horsewomen vs. WWE’s Four Horsemen?
They even have a video where the two factions went face-to-face backstage. Though there were clear plans for that to happen, it was ultimately scrapped. Shyna Baszler and Ronda Rousey had their run at the top and the duo even won the Tag Team titles, but Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke never saw their run go past NXT. Given how WWE’s Horsewomen were going in different directions, it wasn't a surprise that their match never came to frutition.
Shafir is now taking part in the biggest story in AEW - The Death Riders. The AEW star went on Talk is Jericho and discussed why the Four Horsewomen of MMA vs. the Four Horsewomen of wrestling never happened. Though she doesn’t have any concrete answers, the 36-year-old does give her take on why the match never saw the light of day.
“Not very far. We really wanted to do the Four Horsewomen of MMA vs. the Four Horsewomen of wrestling. I’d be very interested in hearing what their perspective is on this. I know what mine was. I just came in to do my job and thinking that was the goal. Me, Shayna, and Jessamyn were a unit on NXT for a while, but we weren’t hitting a mark, me and Jessamyn weren’t hitting a mark as a tag team, and I knew that.”
Shafir went further into why her and Duke just didn’t work out in NXT. The AEW star feels that they were rather directionless within the developmental system.
“I feel like we needed a specific direction or maybe we just didn’t understand the job. It just kind of fizzled out and Shayna was the top one because she rightfully should have been the top one. She had been doing indies and Josh [Barnett] had been mentoring her and preparing her for all of these situations. It just didn’t happen like I feel Hunter would have liked it to happen. Things that haven’t happened yet are still a possibility. In retrospect, reflecting on that, if all of us could have just gotten out of our own assholes.”
The former WWE star went further into her career regarding AEW, her MMA career and why she opted to leave the sport after three professional fights, Jon Moxley, working with her life husband Roderick Strong, and so much more.