Shayna Baszler looks back on her MMA Rules match against Ronda Rousey at WWE SummerSlam.
At WWE SummerSlam, Shayna Baszler defeated Ronda Rousey in an MMA Rules match. The bout drew some criticism due to the stipulation, as there was some confusion regarding the rules.
Speaking with Rick Ucchino for Cageside Seats via Bleav in Pro Wrestling, Shayna Baszler was asked what she would have liked to see done differently in a future MMA Rules match.
“I think a thing that would have helped us regardless, you can say adding the cage, I had really wanted there to be rounds. But I think with the Heritage Cup stuff going on with NXT, they didn’t want to confuse the two rule sets. Which I can kind of understand,” Shayna Baszler said. “The argument made about the cage was the logistics of being in a stadium. It wasn’t just a regular arena, where they could have it there and lower it. So there was some discussion about that.”
Shayna Baszler: MMA Rules Aren’t The Same As UFC Rules
Shayna Baszler went on to describe how she wished the announcer would have put the microphone in front of the referee so the live crowd could have understood the rules better. She noted that there may be some confusion, as MMA rules can differ from UFC rules.
“The thing that would have really helped us is, the television audience got to hear the ref explaining the rules at the beginning, when we were doing the face-off,” she said. “I wish they would have done like the UFC does, and have the announcer come and put the mic through so that they arena could have heard it. I think that maybe the crowd not understanding, I don’t even remember how he worded it, but just explaining a little bit more, like there’s ten counts.
“People that want to argue, UFC rules doesn’t necessarily mean MMA rules. So I come from a time in MMA where we’d show up to the event and be like, ‘Do you want knees on the ground? Do you want to allow elbows? What’s the rule on this? Are we gonna allow this?’ We’d kind of come up with a rule set then. So that part, I wasn’t so nitpicky about the specifics of the rules.
Shayna Baszler Wishes The Rules Were Explained Better
Shayna Baszler continued by stating that she wished there was a graphic or some other way of having the rules for the match explained for the live crowd. She noted that the television audience benefited from hearing the referee explain the rules ahead of the bout.
“I do wish they would have maybe shown a graphic or mic’d the ref or something, just so that it was a little bit better explained,” Baszler said. “But I think the television audience, I think that’s why it was a little more well-received from the television audience than maybe the live audience. But like I said, we knew going on, and for some reason, the Detroit Lions’ stadium doesn’t have a Jumbotron in the middle. I don’t know why. We knew they would have a hard time seeing stuff.
“Like I said, you could say, ‘Oh, the cage,’ or making it be rounds, these sorts of things would have maybe helped the understanding. But I think just blatantly explaining the rules…nobody knows the rules of a WarGames match. But they post the rules and explain it before the match happens. I think they could have done something like that to help us out a little bit. But it wouldn’t have changed what happened.”
The full interview is available here:
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