It’s probably no coincidence that on Wednesday, two of MMA’s fabled Four Horsewomen stable were shown their paths to the WWE Universe, but in two very different fashions. First Ronda Rousey and then Shayna Baszler, were making news on Wednesday, as both began steps towards their WWE career.
First, USA Today broke a story that Ronda Rousey was in the final stages of signing her WWE contract. On the 5 year anniversary of her being named UFC’s first women’s champion, it appears that Rousey’s entrance into the world of her childhood love, professional wrestling, is imminent. As we reported back in October, she’s been training at the WWE Performance Center, alongside 2x Women’s Champion Natalya (as seen in a new video on Rousey’s website) and was spotted this past weekend sharing dinner in Orlando with her Horsewomen stablemates Shayna Baszler and Jessamyn Duke, alongside the latter two’s room mate, indie wrestler Mia Yim (formerly Jade in Impact Wrestling and Mae Young Classic competitor). She’s also been seen at recent NXT Live Events.
Feeding the family with a dash of Yim Love on some Korean bbq 💙✌🏻🇰🇷 pic.twitter.com/cQMRiiv5se
— Michin 미친 (@MiaYim) December 3, 2017
Speaking of Shayna Baszler, a vignette ran tonight on NXT featuring a silhouetted fighter walking through mist in the dark, followed by the word “SOON”. The two O’s turn in Spades, as in the card symbol, a reference to Shayna Baszler’s MMA nickname, ‘The Queen of Spades’. Baszler has been working NXT Live Events for a few months now.
Baszler will clearly make her debut first to fire the first shot, but Rousey will be most likely be hitting NXT sooner than later – although it may just be Live Events. If she takes to the training quickly, she may get fast tracked to the main roster on name power alone.
As for the other two members of the Four Horsewomen, Jessamyn Duke has also moved to Orlando, where as mentioned, she rooms with Baszler and Yim. She was previously training in California with Santino Brothers but may also be starting at the PC as well (if she hasn’t already). The fourth and final member, Marina Shafir, is already somewhat familiar to NXT audiences – though she hasn’t wrestled for NXT, either at Live Events or on TV, she has been a part of her real life husband Roderick Strong‘s story off and on for months. With all the rumours of a Horsewomen vs. Horsewomen feud this past summer after the two factions squared off at the Mae Young Classic, it definitely seems like that showdown may finally be in motion.
