Ronda Rousey hasn’t wrestled since being defeated by Charlotte Flair on the December 30th episode of Friday Night SmackDown.
With the defeat, Rousey also lost the SmackDown Women’s Title. The loss marked the end of an up-and-down year for the star who won the 2022 women’s Royal Rumble match at the SmackDown Women’s Title twice but was heavily criticised by fans for her performances.
To the surprise of many Rousey missed the 2023 Royal Rumble altogether, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t WrestleMania plans in her future.
Ronda Rousey Heading To WrestleMania
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that Rousey will be teaming with Shayna Baszer to take on Women’s Tag Team Champions IYO SKY and Dakota Kai at the event.
“For WrestleMania, the locked in matches at this point are Reigns vs. Rhodes for the Universal title, Charlotte Flair vs. Ripley for the Smackdown women’s title, Belair vs. the Chamber winner for the Raw women’s title, John Cena vs. Austin Theory (no word on whether this will or won’t be a U.S. title match) and Iyo Sky & Dakota Kai vs. Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler for the women’s tag team titles.”
Ronda Rousey has been open about her desire to compete in the tag team division on a regular basis for a number of months. Speaking after her defeat to Flair, the star claimed that she was “tired” of The Queen and wanted to “take over” the tag team division.
Rousey has been in an on-screen partnership with real-life friend Shayna Baszler for a number of months.
The former UFC star has a mixed record at WrestleMania where she won on her debut in 2018. However, since then she lost to Becky Lynch in a Triple Threat Match in 2019 and lost to Charlotte Flair in 2022.
The report also appears to confirm that John Cena will be facing Austin Theory on the show, seemingly putting to bed any lingering speculation that he could wrestle Logan Paul.