The Blackpool Combat Club is yet to formally announce a female member, but Marina Shafir may soon be representing the faction overseas.

The BCC came together in March of 2022, with Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson and William Regal as the founding members. Later that year, the group would welcome Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta into the fold.
While Regal has since left AEW for WWE, the British veteran remains in touch with his BCC allies.

Marina Shafir in the Blackpool Combat Club?

At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18, Jon Moxley represented the BCC when he competed to be the first NJPW Global Champion. Unfortunately for Moxley, both he and Will Ospreay lost to David Finlay, who brawled with Nic Nemeth after the match. Speaking at his post-match press conference, Moxley spoke about his plans for 2024.

“The Blackpool Combat Club has plans in Japan for 2024 and beyond. I want to comeback with Bryan Danielson, with Claudio Castagnoli, I want to get Wheeler Yuta, our young rookie out here and have him test himself.”

Moxley then addressed the women’s division in New Japan and teased bringing in Shafir as a BCC member.

“Marina Shafir, she wants a shot in Japan. Bring the best women you’ve got because that’s one of the baddest b*tches walking the planet and she’ll come over here representing the Blackpool Combat Club.”

Shafir has proven her toughness in the ring countless times, and teamed with Ronda Rousey during the latter’s appearances outside of WWE last year. Moxley’s BCC ally Bryan Danielson fared no better at Wrestle Kingdom 18. The American Dragon lost to Kazuchika Okada in a rematch from AEWxNJPW: Forbidden Door II.

H/T – Fightful

On the latest episode of “The Sessions with Renee Paquette”, Marina Shafir discussed coming from MMA to professional wrestling, her time in NXT AEW.

For months, Shafir has been paired with the Vicious Vixens, Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero. She has wrestled mostly on Elevation and Dark. A couple months ago, “The Problem” was given the opportunity to cut her first promo in AEW. It was all over the place and didn’t flow. It didn’t go over well with the audience at all.

Shafir talks about her struggles of the last few months and says she hasn’t been happy. Her moment at Bloodsport meant a lot to her and she wants to get back to that feeling. “I know there’s more to me and I’m not doing myself any service and like the reason I had that (Bloodsport) is because I was so happy. I was happy at home, I was happy with myself. I know I worked hard. I had nothing to fucking lose. I refuse to sell out. I refuse to fucking give somebody something I know I don’t have. Humble me, like I’m ready like, just– that’s the only way you’re going to get that respect, right?”

Marina Shafir Wants ‘Real Opportunities’ for the Women

“When I approach this stuff, I really want to work with people really bad. I don’t want to work with Serena easy. Mercedes easy. Athena — holy shit — we’d beat the shit out of each other. Fuck, like give me Britt. Give me Jamie. Give me — no fuck that, give me Kiera, give me Diamante. Give me all the girls that are like are also in that bubble who want to like, break that ceiling. I want all those girls because everyone has something to offer, not just one fucking person. And I want for the women, I feel like once we get back to understanding how to like seriously lean on each other and how to trust, it’s going to be what it is.”

• “Egos” – Marina Shafir on Why Four Horsewoman Dream Match Never Happened

Paquette points out that there’s only so much TV time and people are stuck in a rock and a hard place. Shafir replied, “that’s fine. Give us a real opportunity. I used to say this shit all the time when we used to have these locker room meetings (in NXT)…I had only been in the business six months. If they had tomatoes and eggs, they would’ve thrown that shit at me. (…) I said ‘we are not each other’s competition, we are not trying to fucking kill each other. We are in competition with that locker room over there. And you know who’s in that fucking locker room? My husband. But, you know what? Fuck ’em. I want to be in the spot that he’s in. And I’m after his ass.”

Shafir ends with, “I only worked my ass off in pure marital arts. I didn’t go to a fucking professional wrestling seminar. Sorry. I’m so sorry. I will. Send me to one, send me to 50. I would love to. But, I’m sorry your feelings are hurt because I didn’t do what you had to do.”

The “egos” of certain Superstars in WWE squandered the much-anticipated dream match between WWE’s Four Horsewomen and the Four Horsewomen in MMA.

In May 2018, Marina Shafir signed with WWE, alongside fellow MMA alum Jessamyn Duke.

Aiding Shayna Baszler in NXT, the trio was considered part of the Four Horsewomen of MMA, alongside Ronda Rousey.

Egos

For years, WWE fans hoped on an eight-woman tag match, which would have pitted the Four Horsewomen of MMA against Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair, and Bayley.

Of course, the match never happened, and on the latest episode of The Sessions, Shafir gave her reason why.

“Egos were at play. I’ve learned that there are too many f***ing cooks in the kitchen sometimes. In more ways than one.”

Shafir didn’t name which Superstar had an ego that stopped the match happening, but didn’t hold back when addressing WWE’s Four Horsewomen of wrestling.

“I just feel like professional wrestling was a little more exclusive back in the day. It wasn’t about politicking. It was really just about showing respect and not kissing ass.”

Transition

Before coming to WWE, Shafir made her name in MMA, and formerly competed for Invicta Fighting Championships in the women’s featherweight division.

Shafir’s last fight would come in 2015, three years before signing with WWE, and the Moldovan wrestler had an interesting analogy for knowing she needed to fight again.

“You know that feeling when you need to go pee? I felt like I needed to f***ing pee but I couldn’t go. It just felt like I had this internal pressure to go [and wrestle] and I couldn’t do it.”

Shafir would only have six sanctioned matches for WWE before her release in the summer of last year.

Release

Shafir hadn’t competed on WWE programming in close to half a year by the time of her release, but this was something the wrestler was trying to change.

On the show, Shafir said that she was constantly trying to prove herself to WWE, which proved to be difficult given she wasn’t being booked.

“I was in the best shape of my life [when I got released.] And it threw me through a loop, because I consistently asked for more pressure… Just use me. There was something going on with Jess and Shayna was doing her own thing. Use me. Give me that experience, I’m not afraid of failure.

“You see the great ones. They’ve been put in those positions for a reason, because they have failed, and they then learned.”

Bad First Start

For many WWE Superstars, their early days with WWE will see them get endorsed by Triple H, who has shaken hands with countless wrestlers to welcome them to the company.

Shafir never got such a photo, which remains a sticking point for the Moldovan fighter all these years later.

“I felt like I never got a proper introduction. I can f***ing talk about this now. You know the photos, when you get signed to NXT with Triple H and he’s shaking the hand? I never got that photo. And that just sat with me. I wanted that f***ing photo. It meant a lot to me.”

“I wanted that f***ing photo. It meant a lot to me.”

Marina Shafir on not getting the WWE welcome photo with Triple H.

Since her release, Shafir has since joined AEW, where she has challenged for both the Women’s World title and TBS title, but won neither championship.

Thunder Rosa & Marina Shafir Make Amends After Sabotage Claims

AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa and Marina Shafir aren’t going to let recent claims cause problems between them.

Recently, the pair made news after there were accusations of Rosa sabotaging a match between them.

The reigning AEW Women’s World Champion responded to the claims when speaking to Ariel Helwani, and said that people will always talk, but she will move forward.

On Twitter, Rosa shared a couple of photos of herself and Shafir breaking bread, a sign that they have made amends.

Today day we take responsibility and work on being better. Because at the end of the day we break bread. Two mothers navigating a world in where we both never ending learners. @MarinaShafir pic.twitter.com/OyViMgqJgr

— Thunder Rosa (@thunderrosa22) June 16, 2022

The Accusations

On last week’s AEW Dynamite, Rosa defended her title against Shafir in a match that saw the champion retain.

During the match though, several spots didn’t go as planned, and at one point, Shafir struggled to lift the Women’s World Champion.

Online, some accused Rosa of ‘sandbagging’ making her body go limp and as difficult to maneuver, in an attempt to make Shafir look bad.

A fan who tweeted about the match, claiming that Rosa had sabotaged the match had their tweet liked by both Shafir and former Women’s World Champion Dr. Britt Baker.

The Past

This is the latest accusation against Rosa, after ex-AEW star Ivelisse had a match with her in 2020 in which both women were not on the same page.

After departing the company, Ivelisse claimed that Rosa had sabotaged the match and said the bout had been a factor in her departure.

Thunder Rosa’s Reported Next Challenger Won’t be from AEW

Thunder Rosa may have made herself some enemies and we’re not talking storylines.

Rosa is the reigning AEW Women’s Champion. Some haven’t been impressed by her title reign thus far. She had a well-received title defense against Serena Deeb at Double or Nothing but the build was lackluster.

She then had a match with Marina Shafir, which wasn’t very good but some have pinned the blame on Rosa for deliberately sabotaging the performance of her opponent.

Thunder Rosa’s Reputation

Twitter user @ericinsarasota, who happens to be Erick Stevens, a former ROH star, recently shared two interesting tweets on the Thunder Rosa vs. Marina Shafir match from the June 8 episode of Dynamite. The user believes that Rosa was blatantly “sandbagging” her opponent, making Shafir look weak in the process.

It might just look like a bad match to the untrained eye but it’s pretty clear when somebody doesn’t want to play ball. Which sucks because it just makes you and your opponent look bad.

— Eric Koenreich (@erickoenreich) June 11, 2022

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a match where somebody so obviously tried to make themselves look better than their opponent by sandbagging and no selling, but I just saw a perfect example of it on Dynamite.

“It might just look like a bad match to the untrained eye but it’s pretty clear when somebody doesn’t want to play ball. Which sucks because it just makes you and your opponent look bad.”

One might think the tweets are from someone sharing a wild theory but there could be something to this.

Britt Baker, the biggest female star on the AEW roster, actually ended up liking the first tweet, while Marina Shafir liked both.

This isn’t the first time Thunder Rosa has had an incident in the ring with her opponent. Back in Sept. 2020, she had a match with Ivelisse that went off the rails. Ivelisse told Chris Van Vliet that Rosa forgot her spots and the match ended up turning into a shoot.

AEW taped several episodes of Dark at Universal Studios yesterday. Multiple wrestlers made their promotional debut during the tapings. These included a current ROH champion and a former NXT talent.

Current ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods debuted at the tapings. Woods defeated Jonathan Gresham at Death Before Dishonor to become the 2nd wrestler to hold the Pure title since it was reinstated last year. Woods was also signed to NXT from 2014 to 2016.

Scoop #3: Josh Woods vs Shawn Spears

Josh Woods is the current ROH Pure Champion pic.twitter.com/emCxtcFuA5

— Jacob Cohen (@MrJacobCohen) December 4, 2021

Also debuting at the tapings yesterday was 4 Horsewoman of MMA member, Marina Shafir. She wrestled Kris Statlander during the tapings. Shafir was released from her WWE contract in June after having been with the company since 2018. She recently participated in Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport event for GCW in October.

Scoop #16: Kris Statlander vs Marina Shafir pic.twitter.com/7N9nJFiJsR

— Jacob Cohen (@MrJacobCohen) December 3, 2021

During an interview with Fightful, Shafir spoke about her WWE release and continuing her wrestling career.

“I didn’t take it personal, getting released. I have more good memories at NXT than bad. There’s no personal feelings towards that. I get that there’s sides to this business that you just can’t take personal. I signed that agreement long ago. I think two weeks after I got released, Barnett called me. First, we were just talking about how everything went down. But then he was just like, ‘I’m gonna indirectly ask you to stay in shape. Just take care of yourself and we’ll be chatting in a couple of weeks.’ I said, ‘Yep. Gonna go train now. See you later. Talk to you soon. Bye,” she said.

Was very cool to see @MarinaShafir wrestle again!#AEWDark pic.twitter.com/ffG9pDyb6T

— JJ Williams (@JJWilliamsWON) December 3, 2021