Ronda Rousey Regret: WWE’s buyer remorse

If you thought Paul Levesque and the TKO Board were tired of Vince and Rock bashing, here comes Ronda Rousey to add her two cents.

The former UFC and WWE champion has written her second book “Our Fight” which has come out this week. And as you expected she has come out guns blazing about the WWE and her thoughts on the company.

She basically takes a blow torch and burns everyone and anyone from the company to Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, WWE leadership and more. If there was any chance of WWE and Ronda Rousey ever doing business, this book and her attitude put a kaibosh on that.

However if Rousey has a bad taste towards the WWE, you can bet WWE and TKO have one as well. So lets take a look at what Ronda said and put everything into perspective.

She told Triple H she can’t be associated with mediocrity.

Lets start off with calling bullshit on this because if anything Ronda has gotten top shelf treatment and booking.

In her rookie year, fresh off back to back knockout losses in the UFC, Ronda was positioned as the female Brock Lesnar. WrestleMania 34 featured her debuting by beating up Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Watch how Triple H sold her punches and you can see the star treatment they were giving her in her debut match.

Her first year in the WWE featured a one year push that The Rock and Hogan would be envious of. Won the World Title in her 3rd PPV over Alexa Bliss in squash fashion.

AT SummerSlam of all PPV’s. Not RAW or Extreme Rules or some other minor PPV but one of the Big Four PPV’s. After that she roles over

She then went on to beat nearly every woman on the roster from Bayley to Nia Jax to Sasha Banks and even Charlotte Flair. She headlined the first WrestleMania featuring women in the Main Event.

Not bad for a woman whose UFC run ended in failure.

Her second year she got nearly everything she wanted with getting her heel turn, winning the World Title and even teaming with Shayna Baszler to win the tag titles.

If anything Ronda’s wrestling became mediocre as she never improved in the promo’s. Her wrestling never evolved and after a while she became miserable in and out of the ring.

She was the mediocrity in the WWE. She was a Primadonna who wasn’t the draw that she was in the UFC. Infact her second WWE run had fans begging for her to go away for good.

Even the WWE viewed her as mediocre as they kept her far away from rising stars Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair. Imagine the shit show if Ronda went over Rhea and Bianca with armbar submissions.

Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman getting more involvement in their storylines than she did on hers.

Of all the statements that Ronda made about the WWE, this is the one that drives me crazy. No shit Ronda. Of Course Roman and Heyman get more input and control over their stories than you do. And its not because they are men… THEY HAVE BEEN THERE AND PROVEN MORE TRUSTWORTHY.

It took Roman eight years for the WWE to trust him enough to turn heel and become the Tribal Chief. Paul Heyman has worked on and off for the WWE for over twenty years. They had built enough credibility and influence to be on another level. Roman was also a proven draw who loves the business and had gone through hell and back.

Meanwhile Ronda, after having a rookie season that every veteran could only dream of, took off for three years after her first full WWE run.

And when she came back, she walked around with a poor attitude of not wanting to be there according to multiple reports.

Why should WWE have given Ronda the Roman Reigns treatment? Her first run caused alot of bad feelings among the female wrestlers due to her entitled treatment and lack of respect for the industry. And even in her very few losses (She has lost a grand total of SIX singles matches) they always were in ways to protect her.

Imagine being Triple H and having Ronda walk up and insist she wanted better storylines after three years away. She didn’t want to look weak, she hated pro wrestling fans and didn’t show any enjoyment infront of or behind the camera.

BUT HEY… she wants to have storylines written around her.

I can only imagine how Levesque had to show the patience of Jobe at times for not telling her to just shut up. Why should he give her the golden treatment when she had yet to prove she could be reliable to finish her contract?

Complaining about Vince McMahon’s treatment of her and how he viewed her.

Its ironic that Ronda hates Vince but loves Dana White when both are more alike that she would care to admit. But that is another story for another day.

While Vince has been exposed for being a disgusting human being all around, you could say he treated Ronda like a star. He paid her as if she was John Cena or Roman Reigns right off the bat despite her coming in off two devastating knockout losses. He also pushed her as a main event star from Day 1 and allowed her to have her own music “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett. That meant every time Ronda wrestled and came out to that song, WWE paid royalties for it.

Nobody else on the Roster got that at the time but Ronda did.

He then allowed her to take several years off to start a family and come back and get her main event push. This was after she complained about wrestling being fake and telling the fans that they were horrible. And despie the fact she was often walking around as if she was miserable, she still got to do what she wanted.

Imagine being at your job where you get to do what you want to do, have near complete control of everything, and get paid big money. Sign me up for that as I would be dancing the hot foot.

And it wasn’t like Ronda was a hot property when she came into the WWE and had offers coming her way. UFC was in the rearview mirror as she was no longer able to mentally cope with losses.

And Hollywood dropped her like a hot potato once that happened. WWE was her only real option and not only did she go and get paid BUT HER FRIENDS CAME WITH HER AND GOT PAID.

Remember when Ronda and her crew called themselves the Four Horsewomen? Yes that was a thing despite the fact that only Ronda had ever won in the UFC. And of her crew only Shayna Baszler had any success in MMA or Pro Wrestling. But Vince and co pushed them in NXT as this force and there were even plans for a Horsewomen vs. Horsewomen match at WrestleMania at one point.

Say what you want, but in this case Vince was the one who was promoting and treating Ronda like a first class act.

Blaming Stephanie McMahon’s slap for a concussion & other concussions.

As someone who has suffered from a concussion (not the most fun thing) Ronda’s explanation of concussions has merit but gets abused along the way.

She said she kept all these concussions a secret yet somehow fooled not just the NSAC, the USOC and the WWE but her own doctors. She also said she would get concussion symptoms if she ever got jabbed and that she tore her ACL the night before her fight with Holly Holm.

And yet no doctor ever detected this, she never disclosed it afterwards. Its funny how the mouthguard, the ACL and concussions are all coming out during the book tour and the book itself.

But regarding the concussion at the hands of Stephanie, since early 2018 the the WWE Concussion protocol has stated that any WWE wrestler showing ANY SIGNS of concussion would be placed in protocol.

After getting sued and nearly taken all the way to Federal Court, the WWE has taken big steps to fix that problem. And Stephanie McMahon as not just a talent but at the time a management figure would understand the threat.

That if she herself caused a performer to get a concussion, there would be serious repercussions. We are talking management being at fault and opening the company to a major lawsuit.

Bottom line is that at this point if your the WWE, you look at Ronda Rousey’s tenure as a wash. She had a great first year, three years of inactivity and the final year which was just painful for all parties.

For Ronda, the book is probably her last hurrah in terms of notoriety and fame. She can’t go back to MMA as her body and her emotions can’t handle it. For all the physical toughness that she has shown, the loss broke her in ways that are mind boggling.

If anything, it was not a great match as to succeed in pro wrestling you have to have not just a thick skin but in today’s industry be a corporate person. Ronda was never that and even talked about how she hated having real jobs after the Olympics.

Could WWE have presented her better going forward; possibly but while she wanted to be a heel, she enjoyed getting cheered.

For now, WWE has moved on, Ronda has moved on, and all parties can now breathe a sigh of relief that it’s all in the rearview mirror. You can check out more interviews with athletes and sports reporters on www.lastcallpodcast.com or follow me on Twitter.com/LastCallwChrisC