WWE Star Shayna Baszler Describes How Bloodsport Appearance Came About

WWE star Shayna Baszler has been the talk of WrestleMania weekend so far, despite the fact that she isn't booked on either night of WWE's biggest show of the year. Instead, she made her debut for GCW on April 4 as part of Josh Barnett's Bloodsport X event, where she picked up the victory over TNA star Masha Slamovich. Bloodsport is the annual event that leans more into the shoot-style of wrestling that is influenced by mixed martial arts, something Baszler knows all about given her past as an MMA fighter.

Speaking with MMAFighting.com, Baszler explained that she had heard rumblings of Barnett wanting to use some WWE performers on his show, but she assumed that the company was going to send younger stars from "WWE NXT." However, when she was asked, she was pleasantly surprised. "I get pulled in the office, and they're like, 'Would you like to wrestle on Josh's Bloodsport?' I'm like yeah, is everything cool? They're like yeah, he was just looking for people, and there's only a few wrestlers that we have that know how to wrestle that style, and you're one of them, so are you interested? I said yes, 100 percent. It was a complete surprise on my end."

Baszler described the match with Slamovich as a full circle moment for her given that Barnett helped train her to become a wrestler, while also encouraging fans who aren't familiar with the concept to check out the show. "The style of pro wrestling that Josh's event Bloodsport is very much in the lines of old-school Pancrase, old-school RINGS. If everything is done right, you should watch it and go, 'Holy smokes.' Understand, back in the old PRIDE days, those guys would claim pro wrestling as their martial art when they were fighting in PRIDE."

Please credit MMAFighting.com when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.