One half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, Shayna Baszler, was a recent guest on WWE’s ‘The Bump’ to discuss a variety of topics.
During the interview, Baszler explained the reasoning behind why she and Ronda Rousey often wear their karate black belts to the ring and why it’s significant for them. She said,
“Yeah, and it’s cool because both of us are honoring where we started all this, wearing our black belts to the ring. It’s not just a reminder to everyone else about our pedigree, it’s a reminder to ourselves of where we come from. So it’s funny because, I’m sure Ronda learning to throw people at four or me getting on a wrestling mat when I was six or signing up for my first jujitsu class, it’s not something that was like, ‘Alright, I can’t wait.’ It’s funny, I’ve talked about my catch wrestling, and I studied catch wrestling alongside Brazilian jujitsu, and catch wrestling is more like amateur wrestling in that there’s not a belt system per se. But in the old way of catch wrestling, you didn’t get to do professional wrestling until you prove yourself on the mat as an amateur. So I’ve always said that pro wrestling in the WWE is my black belt in catch wrestling if there was one. So, I don’t know, it’s just a cool way to show that all this was put into motion long, long ago.”