Since her 2024 memoir hit bookshelves, Ronda Rousey has had a lot to say about her two WWE runs. Actually, she spoke about her 2017-2019 stint before coming back for what looks like her final work with the company in 2022-2023, but Rousey’s more recent remarks about WWE have been more unfiltered.
With Ronda ramping up promotion for her return to the mixed martial arts cage this weekend on Netflix, we’ll likely be hearing more from the the 2022 Royal Rumble winner about her WWE experience in the coming
days. We did in a new interview she did with Complex that’s out today (May 11).
Across both her arcs with WWE, she repeatedly says there were positives. Still, Rousey didn’t feel she was allowed to be herself very often:
“I felt like I was doing somebody else’s impression of myself. You can tell when I was allowed to write my own promos and when I wasn’t. I learned a lot from it and I really enjoyed my time in the ring. I didn’t really enjoy being under the death throes of Vince McMahon’s reign, but there were a lot of great experiences in there.”
In her memoir — mostly written before the accusations made in Janel Grant’s sex trafficking lawsuit against McMahon and WWE became public — and beyond, Ronda’s been very critical of McMahon and his “yes men”. She told Complex the end of her time with the company, much of which came after Vince returned from his hush money scandal to sell the company to Ari Emanuel before being forced out of WWE and its new parent company TKO by the accusations in Grant’ suit, was the worst:
“The second run, Vince was just more far gone and more difficult to work with. There was a lot of inner turmoil going on in the company. It was kind of a shit show and nobody ever knew what was going on. You would get to the arena and you would be made to do something that somebody threw in your lap that hadn’t thought about it until 15 minutes before. Everything was super last minute and not well thought out, and there was no communication, no back and forth.
“Any attempt to collaborate felt like we were trying to negotiate something as opposed to partnering together to make something great. I love being out there in the ring and doing it, but the process was just such a clusterfuck shit show that it was so much more anxiety than it was worth. I just look back at it and I just remember the anxiety of not knowing what was going on and then at the last minute, maybe we’d be able to pull it out of our ass and have a good night, and maybe not.”
In addition to her MMA bout with Gina Carrano this weekend, Rousey’s made a couple pro wrestling appearances for Tony Khan’s wrestling promotions, AEW and ROH, where her old friend Marina Shafir works. Those sound loosely organized as well, but in a way that let’s Ronda be herself. And swear and stuff:
“… one thing I really love about AEW is that it’s not PG like WWE. So I can walk in there and flick everybody off and walk out and laugh with my best friend and have a great time, and I didn’t feel as edited as before, and so it was- yeah it was a good time.”
Back to the company she represented as one of its Women’s champions on three occasions, Rousey says she’s rooting for WWE under current creative head Paul “Triple H” Levesque…
“I was definitely team Triple H to get up to take it over. I’ve heard it’s been much better since he’s taken things over, but unfortunately I didn’t get to experience it.”
Given how anti-TKO the mixed martial arts legend has been when it comes to their management of her other old employer UFC, we’re not sure if Levesque’s WWE would be much better for her.
Let us know your takeaways from Rousey’s latest in the comments below. Here’s her full interview with Complex:
