UFC star Ronda Rousey was never a great promo in WWE. During an interview this week on the Bertcast, Ronda explained to host Bert Kreischer why her promos were all over the place.
Rousey first mentioned
that she didn’t actually start talking until the age of five due to apraxia, and it’s something she has to really concentrate on to get right.
“For those who don’t know, apraxia is a motor speech disorder where what you want to say and what comes out of your mouth are two different things…
If you’re doing a WWE promo, if you slur a word, or if anything isn’t perfectly enunciated, but you can’t enunciate it too much, ’cause Triple H was like if you enunciate too much, then you sound like Hunter Hearst Helmsley, which is too well-to-do, it turns people off. So there’s this line you have to walk so perfectly that it’s hard, especially when you’re self-conscious about how you talk.”
Ronda also said WWE wrote corny scripts for her that didn’t sound like how she would actually talk in real life, and a lot of it was put together at the last minute.
“I always speak my mind, and that is kind of what helped me get to this point. And when I was [in WWE], I felt like a lot of the time I was having to do somebody else’s impression of myself, you know? At first, every promo they wrote for me was like, ‘I’m gonna rip off your arm!’ And I’m like, can we make this less hokey? But it’s because nobody put any thought into it until that evening.
This is the way I wish it was done, like a TV series. WrestleMania is the big finale, and so after WrestleMania, let’s sit down and plot what the season’s gonna be. And then by the time we get to the finale, it’s something that we put a lot of thought into, and rehearsed, and everything like that. And it’s just not like that.
When I headlined WrestleMania, they threw that match together mostly the night before, and we were still figuring it out the day of. And it’s kind of like, we had all year guys! We can make this even more fantastical, but that’s just not the way that they do things.”
Rousey’s final run with WWE was mostly a disaster and turned her off from wanting to return. She told Kreischer that it probably won’t be happening, but she’s still grateful for her time in the company.
“Probably not gonna be going back. I’m very grateful for the experience, and what I was able to help the women do to get to the main event of WrestleMania. But it’s not my circus, not my monkeys.”
What do you think about Ronda Rousey’s explanation on why promos were difficult for her to do well in WWE? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.
