Ronda Rousey Discusses The Real Reason She Left WWE

Ronda Rousey might have left the WWE over a year ago, but she has remained relevant in public. She has taken to social media to discuss her displeasure with WWE, specifically Vince McMahon. Of course, she was not happy with her booking at times. Yet her issue goes well beyond that, as she saw how the women of WWE were treated and was unhappy about it. During her time in WWE, the company was in the middle of a successful shift.

WWE never focused on or cared about women’s wrestling, but they prioritized it during this shift. That allowed the company to jump up several notches, allowing women to shine in ways they never could.

Despite this great shift, women were still experiencing predatory issues at times. Often, this was a problem with fans, which was always tough to control. Other times, women had trouble with the male Superstars. Rousey even brought up an issue she had with now ex-WWE Superstar Drew Gulak. While she has been in the news a lot for her opinions and, of course, her recent book…she did not take part in a ton of interviews.

However, she recently appeared on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet on YouTube and discussed a ton of interesting topics. Let’s dive into some of the highlights.

RONDA ROUSEY ON HER CONTROVERSIAL WRESTLEMANIA PIN

Ronda Rousey was a huge asset to WWE, especially the women’s division. After years of mistreatment, the ladies now had a big spotlight, and many rose to the occasion. It led to the WrestleMania 35 main event, where women main-evented the show for the very first time. Becky Lynch vs Ronda Rousey vs Charlotte Flair would decide the new RAW and SmackDown Women’s Champions. Of course, we know Lynch won the match. However, Ronda’s shoulders were not down completely for the pin. While Ronda never spoke publicly about this controversial ending, she did with Van Vliet, telling him:

“I didn’t think my shoulders were flat on the ground, so I was trying to scoot to get my shoulders flat because it’s so f*cking loud I can’t hear anything. But that’s the difference between a match that got thrown together the night before and the debut match, which is a match that had been put together over weeks with tons of support and practice and opinions and everything like that.”

Like many of us, she was unhappy about the match’s set-up. She said:

“Why did we put a whole year into promoting and building this match, and then it’s just thrown together at the last second? We were still figuring it out when we were at the venue, and that’s what a lack of practice and rehearsal does.”

She also expressed the fact that she wanted to use the pin as part of a story. It would have made sense to do so, considering what happened. Rousey told Chris:

“I wanted to use that. I wanted to use that as, okay, this is how we lead into the next one. We bring it up on the Tron and say, ‘You never got me, this is bullsh*t. The referees are all in your pocket…’ and put that into the next, you know, the singles between me and Becky that everybody wanted that got taken away.”

When asked if that meant that the pin issue was on purpose, she said:

“No, no, no. I didn’t think my shoulders were flush. I was trying to flatten out. But I think that we could have used it and kept it going, but they never let us.”

At least we know she did not do this to try and look strong or something. Many assumed that was the case and that a future match with Lynch for one or both titles was coming out of this. However, it never happened. The question is, why?

WHY THE BECKY LYNCH MATCH DIDN’T HAPPEN:

As referenced, Ronda Rousey felt there could be some potential in a match with Lynch. The two were supposed to face off against each other at Survivor Series a few months earlier. However, an unfortunate orbital issue and concussion due to Nia Jax’s recklessness took her out of action shortly before the match. Therefore, a one-on-one match made sense for WrestleMania. Then WWE changed that to a triple threat. This would make us wonder why the two did not face off afterward.

Ronda blames Vince McMahon for this and is still not a big fan of his. This was her dialogue with Chris Van Vliet about the issue:

Chris Van Vliet: “Why couldn’t the Becky match happen at WrestleMania?”

Ronda Rousey: “Because Vince is an 80-year-old asshole.”

Van Vliet: “So there’s no love lost here with Vince McMahon?”

Rousey: “No, Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, Bruce Prichard, they can all suck a dick.”

Van Vliet: “But good with Triple H and Stephanie?”

Rousey: “They are fantastic, I love them.”

RONDA’S FUTURE IN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

Ronda Rousey was a big force in both the MMA and Pro Wrestling world. She was single-handedly responsible for UFC President Dana White, allowing women to fight in the UFC. Due to her success, they expanded the women’s divisions from just Bantamweight to Strawweight and Featherweight in recent years. Several more impressive MMA fighters, including Amanda Nunes, came into the UFC as time passed. Rousey would lose her last two UFC fights before retiring from MMA and would work for the WWE for a while.

While Ronda was not responsible for the entire success of women’s wrestling in WWE, she was a huge asset in helping it gain notoriety in WWE. On a very cool note, WWE’s focus on women’s wrestling led to more focus on this worldwide. Many all-female promotions like World Wonder Ring Stardom (or just Stardom) and SHIMMER saw more attention. Other promotions began to focus on highlighting women even more, too. Ronda was a part of people taking women’s wrestling seriously and should be thanked for that alongside several female WWE Superstars.

During her interview, she announced that she is now retired from full-time professional wrestling work. She would consider working for WWE again under the Triple H regime, as she feels the company is in good hands with Hunter. She claimed:

“But Vince being gone really changes things a lot. I love Triple H, and I love Steph [and] I think they are f*cking fantastic. I just need to get over my own hang-ups from the past and logic it away.”

This does mean that a Ronda Rousey return to WWE is not out of the cards. However, she is still not interested in doing a full-time return. This likely means she might work a semi-part-time schedule if anything. It could resemble something like what we saw recently with Trish Stratus. The 7-time World Champion returned for a few months at TV tapings only and wrestled a few times during that period.

WHY RONDA RETIRED FROM MMA

While the Insight interview is well worth checking out, we also recommend checking out her interview with Danica Patrick, which took place recently. On the Pretty Intense Podcast with Danica Patrick, she revealed why she had to retire from MMA entirely. Nearly 12 minutes into the interview, Ronda revealed she could never return to the UFC. She would not consider it for what seems like a pretty understandable reason. Rousey claimed:

“I also miss rolling, which is like sparring on the ground. I miss grappling, which is like sparring without hitting each other. I’ve such a history of neurological injuries. I can’t really take the hits of, like, being hit in the head anymore or any impacts more than is necessary. So, I can’t really do it for fun.”

During an interview with BBC Sports earlier in April of 2024, Rousey expanded a lot more on this. She claimed that she had suffered several concussions and neurological injuries during her time in the UFC. However, Rousey claims that she hid them likely so she could still keep doing what she loved. Rousey specifically discussed this issue when the interview focused on her UFC loss to Holly Holm. Ronda claimed:

“It’s hard to look at footage of that match. Because I can literally see in my eyes I’m suffering from a neurological injury decades in the making. It [ticks] me off when people see that and say, ‘this is Ronda being outclassed’. That’s me with my brain not properly working. I was concussed going into that fight – I fell down the stairs and knocked myself out two weeks before. But I had been hiding concussions and neurological injuries for so long that it just became part of it. And that was the point I was forced to really self-assess and be like, ‘your brain has taken too much damage for too many years.'”

If you look back on this fight, Ronda is likely telling the truth. She did not seem right from the minute the fight started. Rousey had been crediting Holm as a person who could potentially beat her despite going into the fight undefeated. Her judo style doesn’t mix well with a kickboxer like Holm, and it seems she went into autopilot immediately. Despite being hit several times, she kept going inside to set up a clinch. This only led to more shots to the head. Surprisingly, she lasted as long as she did with the number of strikes she kept taking.

WHY SHE DEVELOPED HER SPECIFIC MMA STYLE:

While many think Rondy Rousey developed her MMA style around her Judo background, this is only partially true. Rousey had suffered several head injuries during her judo career and even on her way to earning a bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in 2008. She wanted to compete in MMA, and Strikeforce was the only major territory for women’s MMA at the time.

Gina Carano had become a star there, and Ronda became a star for the company in her own right before Zuffa, LLC. (then parent company of UFC) bought the promotion.

Rousey developed a style to avoid getting hit as much as possible. During her major undefeated streak of 12 wins, she earned the win nine times with armbar stoppages. 11 of those wins came in the first round. By her own design, she deliberately pressured opponents immediately into fights to earn a win as fast as possible. The idea was to limit the damage she took. Rousey said regarding all of this:

“When I came into MMA, I couldn’t take any hits, so I had to develop a style of fighting that I believe is the most efficient that’s ever been made with the express objective of avoiding damage. It forced me to be really quick and efficient and try to finish off people very quickly. It wasn’t an accident or luck; it was something I was doing very much on purpose. Now removed from it, I can be proud of myself and be like no one could even get close to me until it got to the point where even being touched put me out. Even though it feels like everyone will always define me by my failures, I know I created the most efficient fighting style that ever existed, and I’m proud of that.”

To give her credit, Ronda Rousey was pretty efficient. It is hard to argue that when out of 14 fights, 11 were won in the first round. She clearly found a way that worked for her, but as time passed and competition became greater, the writing was on the wall. After her fight with Holm, Ronda returned to the UFC over a year later, where she lost to the impressive Amanda Nunes, much like she lost to Holm.

It makes sense why Rousey did not keep trying to compete in MMA despite still being more than young enough to keep fighting. A WWE run was smarter and allowed her to avoid getting hit in the head repeatedly on purpose.