Ronda Rousey believes that one of her earlier WWE rivalries was not entirely thought through.
Following on from her well-received debut at WrestleMania 34 which saw the former UFC Champion team with Kurt Angle to defeat Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, Rousey needed to find her place within the women’s division and establish a rivalry with a full-time member of the roster.
Originally looking set to challenge Nia Jax for the Raw Women’s Championship, the match ended in DQ when Alexa Bliss cashed in her Money in the Bank briefcase and stole away the title. An irate Rousey would defeat Bliss at SummerSlam to win her first Women’s Championship which was followed by a victory in their rematch at Hell in A Cell.
Discussing the rivalry with Bliss during an interview with Ring The Belle, Rousey stated that while she thought the original plan was to give her experience selling given that Bliss was a smaller opponent, the reality was that the rivalry was just thrown together:
“Well at the time I was like ‘Oh well maybe they’re just trying to like make me be a better wrestler and be able to sell for someone who’s as big as my leg and make it convincing.’ But really it just came down to the fact that Vince didn’t pay any attention to us and just looked at ‘Oh she sells the most merch, Ronda’s hot right now, put them together.’
That was as much thought as he put into it. That started a long legacy of having to make chicken sh*t into chicken salad. But I learned a lot from her. She taught me like okay we’re going to have to lead on like comedy and story and expressions and stuff like that to be able to get people into this.”
Continuing, Rousey added that while there was little thought into having her work with Alexa Bliss, she was grateful for Bliss helping her improve in the early stages of her career and how they were able to make it work:
“So it definitely made me into a much better wrestler and much more diverse in the ring and not just leaning on athleticism and spots and stuff like that when I’m dealing with somebody who is not only smaller than me and can’t support my weight or anything like that but she was also suffering from different kinds of injuries and things like that.
There were just a lot of things that were prohibitive and off limits. I’m used to working with people that are supposed to be able to withstand me actually trying to hurt them with my bare hands. Then I’m getting in there with somebody like ‘Okay I have to make this physical and believable but also take care of her.’
So that was something completely new. I learned a whole lot from that but I wish that there was a lot more thought put into it from the very top. But they were just setting the tone of like ‘Okay this is what it’s going to be. We’re going to throw stuff at you without putting any thought into it and you guys are going to have to put in the thought to make it work.’”
Ronda Rousey Details Scrapped WWE Plans
Despite being with the company for over 2 years across 2 runs, the highly-requested singles match between Rousey and Becky Lynch never did take place. While it was rumoured that they were close to working with each other multiple times, Ronda Rousey also stated in the interview that the match was offered to her at a unique pay-per-view.
Speaking on a stream, Ronda Rousey admitted one WWE storyline could be fun.
H/t to SEScoops.