Triple H Talks About The Amount Of Effort It Took To Keep Ronda Rousey’s Appearance A Secret

As you know by now, former UFC Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey officially signed with WWE and made her debut with the company at this past Sunday’s 2018 Royal Rumble PPV.

Prior to Ronda Rousey’s appearance at the 2018 Royal Rumble, Rousey was in Columbia working on a new movie titled “Mile 22”.

As you can probably imagine, both the WWE and Ronda Rousey went to great length in an effort to keep the public in the dark about her planned appearance Sunday night. In fact, Ronda Rousey as well as several members of the Mile 22 production team, were posting photos of Rousey on set in Columbia on social media throughout the weekend in an effort to trick fans into thinking she was unavailable for the Royal Rumble, which she had been heavily rumored to appear at.

WWE’s Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, Paul “Triple H” Levesque spoke to USA Today about the effort and steps that were taken to keep Ronda Rousey’s planned debut a secret.

“IT WAS A MONUMENTAL TASK, IT TOOK A LARGE TEAM.”

With such a widespread use of social media in today’s society, and factor in Ronda Rousey’s worldwide fame and notoriety, and the amount of speculation and rumors already circulating of her involvement in the Royal Rumble, Triple H says WWE had to use a “large team” to extract Rousey from Columbia and smuggle her into the United States unnoticed.

“It’s harder than you think in this world of social media. As it was coming down to making the decision we wanted to do this, there were a lot of last-minute things. She was in Colombia doing the movie. Trying to get somebody on a flight that is as famous as Ronda is, and as visible as she is – and internationally she’s almost bigger than she is in he U.S. – on a flight, into the country, through customs, clear security, on another flight to Philly, shuttle to a hotel, into the service entry, brought to a bus, hidden in the arena the whole day, and not until right before she walks out there does anybody see her.”

Triple H stated that it was a “monumental task” and “it took a large team” to create that unbelievable moment for the WWE universe. The entire ‘operation’ was kept very, very quiet on all fronts and only a handful of people knew what was being done, if you weren’t a McMahon (or Triple H) or Kevin Dunn, then you were in the dark.