WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Shayna Baszler recently caught up with Corey Graves on his "After the Bell" podcast to discuss a number of topics. While it's no secret that she's fallen down the card in recent months, the former NXT Women's Champion made a huge impact when she debuted on RAW by biting Becky Lynch's neck.
While it received mixed reviews from fans, the sight of blood pouring from her mouth was a memorable one. As it turns out, Baszler also had reservations about the angle when she first heard about it.
"Even I felt mixed about it but the fact of the matter is you can’t argue with the fact that it was trending and people were talking about it," she explains. "It’s a good gauge as far as what’s getting people talking. I was talking to Kevin Owens when I was still at NXT. He was at the Performance Center and he was telling me that NXT has a very loyal fan base but you forget that the majority of the RAW and SmackDown audience doesn’t necessarily watch NXT."
"He said when he was NXT champion, it was a real eye-opening experience that when he started dabbling on RAW and SmackDown when he was still champion that there were some crowds that didn’t know who he was," Baszler continued. "It blew my mind. If I’m moving from NXT to RAW and SmackDown, you have to do something that’s going to make you stand out. I think in the end, I came around and said, ok, people are talking about this so it worked."
While it's been reported that Vince McMahon has lost faith in Baszler after some bad matches near the start of her run, she is Tag Team Champion right now, so can hopefully turn that around moving forward. We'll just have to wait and see, though, especially given how poorly other teams who have held those titles have been treated.