WWE’s Shayna Baszler Breaks Down What Makes Zoey Stark Partnership So Formidable

At the beginning of January WWE paired Zoey Stark and Shayna Baszler together as a tag team on WWE Raw. Although they’ve only had five matches thus far in their short history and were thrown together, surprisingly they make a lot of sense as a tag team. Baszler thinks so too, and she recently discussed why she believes they work so well at the Royal Rumble media junket.

“I beat the snot out of her, man, and she just wouldn’t stay down. You know what I mean? She didn’t quit,” Baszler told Comicbook.com. “That’s always going to impress me, really. I think there was a moment backstage where I stuck up for her because she’s earned my respect, and I think I just tried to take her under my wing, give her some advice a little. She doesn’t like to stay there. She’s an annoying kid’s sister that doesn’t listen to you. But yeah, I think our in-ring styles compliment each other. She does all the crazy, high fly, cool stuff, and I just tear people’s limbs off. People watch when she does and they cover their eyes when I do my stuff, because it’s gross, so we’re a good match for each other.”

Baszler has been a member of the WWE roster since 2017 after departing the UFC/MMA in 2015. She transitioned to professional wrestling where she wrestled on the independents as well as STARDOM before entering the inaugural Mae Young Classic. She made it all the way to the semi-finals before she was eliminated by Mercedes Martinez. She became a full-time member of the WWE shortly after and has found great success with the company. 

Baszler is a two-time NXT Women’s Champion and a three-time WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion. When asked what her favorite Royal Rumble moment has been, she makes a callback to her own career when she and Charlotte Flair were the final two in the 2020 women’s Rumble. “I got to think of my own, when I threw Beth Phoenix out and then I turn around and it’s only me and Charlotte. And hearing the crowd rumble and just knowing I was that close, that moment, taking it all in. And that moment, that moment was, it seems like a cop out, but that was my favorite.”