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Steve Austin Says The SmackDown Women’s Title Deserves Much Better

Money In The Bank is in the books but there are still quite a lot of talking points to go over that happened in St Louis. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin recently discussed his feelings about the Money In The Bank PPV on his podcast The Steve Austin Show Unleashed.

One subject he went over was the SmackDown Women’s Title match between Naomi and Lana. While he understands the professional wrestling business very well it still didn’t register why Lana was booked in such a high profile match right out of the gate.

“I don’t know how this match came to be” Stone Cold stated and then he proposed what Naomi should have said to Lana instead of accepting her challenge. “‘I’ll fight you, hey you want a shot at me I’ll fight you — no title on the line because you didn’t do anything to deserve it. But since I’m a fighting champion, I’ll fight you but you don’t deserve a shot at the title so that is not on the line.'”

“So then it’s back onto Lana, ‘okay yeah I’ll accept that because I wanna go in there with the best of the best because you have the belt and so let’s tangle.’ But the title is not on the line so with putting words into Naomi’s mouth with ‘hey I’m a fighting champion’ to give reason for this match to happen and there by some logic — Naomi deserves better, the title deserves better, Lana wasn’t up for this task at hand at this point in her career.”

“I thought [Lana] had much more mystique as the valet — whatever the term is — with Rusev […] They kinda killed her gimmick off and reinvented her and I just liked her the way she was so if she wants to be in the ring that’s more power to her.”

Austin went on to say a lot of fans were telling him Lana did great for her first match and The Rattlesnake agreed that was good for her. But the best of the best need to be on a pay-per-view and Lana wasn’t up to the task and WWE should treat a title with more respect cause Stone Cold said so.

If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit The Steve Austin Show Unleashed with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription

Aaron Varble

Aaron Varble hasn’t just been writing for more than a decade in various formats including sketch comedy, stand up, television, radio, and other various projects; nor is he just another professional wrestling fan with a master's degree in journalism and Tourette’s syndrome. He's always looking to explore the why not with the why and the how come along with the how. Follow on Twitter @TheVarble