Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch will go down as one of the biggest “What if?” singles matches that never happened in WWE.
It almost happened at Survivor Series 2018, until Lynch suffered an injury and was replaced by Charlotte Flair.
It almost happened at WrestleMania 35 after Lynch won the 2019 Royal Rumble. However, WWE shoehorned Flair into their title match to make it a triple threat in the first ever women’s main event in WrestleMania history.
Rousey competed at two more WrestleMania events after
returning to WWE as the 2022 Royal Rumble winner. The first one was a singles match against Flair at WrestleMania 38. At that time, the rumor mill indicated there was already a long-term plan in place for Rousey vs. Lynch the following year at WrestleMania 39. It became more apparent by the end of the year that the match wasn’t actually happening; Rousey instead ended up in a very forgettable mid-card 4-way tag team match at WrestleMania 39.
Ronda is doing a lot of media this week to promote her return to MMA on Saturday (May 16) against Gina Carano, and she’s getting plenty of questions about her time in WWE. During an interview with The Takedown on SI, Rousey said WWE essentially pulled a bait-and-switch after approving her carefully planned pitch for a WrestleMania match against The Man. Here is SI’s excerpt from the interview:
“After WrestleMania, I literally printed out a whole presentation for them, for me and Becky — the singles match,” Rousey said. “How we would do it, how we would plan it out and rehearse these things and have them woven throughout the show. To do something really exceptional and new. And then Vince and them were like, ‘oh yeah, this is a great idea, this is great.’ Then I went and had my baby, I came back, and they were like, well, we talked about that a year ago.
They said, ‘We love this plan, it’s an epic showdown with you and Becky that’s going to build all year.’ I wanted to make basically a final showdown of me and Becky woven throughout the entirety of the show. It would summarize the entire rivalry for anyone watching it for the first time. Someone could watch it and not need to watch everything that came beforehand. It would sum it up and then deliver the ending. I thought it was fucking incredible and it was why I came back.”
Do you think WWE’s decision to never book Rousey vs. Lynch will go down as one of the biggest missed opportunities in company history? Let me know your reaction to Rousey’s story in the comments below, Cagesiders.
