With WWE WrestleMania 34 now officially less than a month away, I knew I wanted to write a column today. The only question was about what though? Do I talk about my experience in Milwaukee for RAW and all the cool reactions live and in person? Eh, already did that on another website. Do I preview Fastlane a little bit and break down the blue brand on the Road to WM? Eh, already did that on another website. Truth be told, there is a whole ton to write about. However, I wanted to let my Twitter followers choose the topic for me, so I let them pick for me.
Thanks to Twitter user @gr3101997, I had my column…
Online Ronda Rousey Hate
I didn’t get it years back while she was in UFC, and I don’t get it now than she is in WWE. I’ve already talked about how much I am loving this story line with Kurt Angle, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon. Rather than repeat myself, let’s just break down the usual complaints starting with her fighting career.
Over rated woman who never beat anybody in the octagon – BS. Ronda Rousey defeated everybody lined up in front of her. Just like a football team that goes undefeated and stomps all over their competition. They are just playing who is on their schedule. Let’s be honest. UFC started the entire women’s division to showcase Rousey. That is not much of a secret. At the same time, there was not a whole lot of great fighters out there for her. Thus, she beat all comers. Good, bad, and in between. When the competition finally did start to heat up, guess what? She beat them too. Her undefeated run was not against a bunch of tomato cans. It may have started that way but didn’t end that way. Same with her two inevitable defeats. No shame in losing to a great fighter, which is exactly what she is…a great fighter.
She ran away scared from UFC and went into hiding – Here is a little confession from yours truly. I have never experienced a personal death. I had some friends from school die and distant relatives but nobody THAT close to me. I admit it. I have been very lucky in this regard. Nobody that’s close to me has passed away. I know at some point it’ll happens but up until now, I haven’t. I cannot even begin to fathom how I would handle such an event in my life. I don’t know if I would cry, laugh, have a nervous breakdown, stop eating, or what. Not a direct comparison by any means, but Rousey had never had such a dramatic knockout loss in UFC. I am not going to sit here and tell her how she “should” have responded. Only she knows what was going on in her mind. Even in late January when doing an interview for ESPN about the Royal Rumble entrance, Ronda dodged a question about her two UFC losses and stopped the interview. Clearly, it hit her hard then and still does to this day. I won’t bash her for being human. She was hurt, physically and mentally. Being a life-long professional wrestling fan, her options were return to a genre that had scarred her figuratively and literally or chase a dream.
Just another celebrity stealing a WrestleMania moment – Not true at all. Ronda Rousey is a huge wrestling fan. She is one of us ladies and gentlemen. This is a feel-good story for all of us. Go back and watch the behind the scenes footage of her on WWE’s YouTube page. Check out the post-Rumble interview when she is in tears talking about Rowdy Roddy Piper and how much this all means to her. I have no idea what she is being paid; my guess is a few million at least…but I don’t care. Besides the obvious star power and marketability, this is a girl that loves wrestling finally getting a chance to step in the ring. How freakin’ cool. I guarantee you that smirk on her face during every promo is not done on purpose. It is because she just can’t help it. I find it endearing and heartwarming that still in the middle of serious segments, she is holding back a smile.
Her promos have stunk – I don’t know about you, but I watched every single one of her UFC fights and witnessed the build up to all of those pay-per-view events. Newsflash folks: Ronda Rousey has always been a soft spoken silent assassin type. She is not the one to yell and scream. Never has been. Her emotion is from the death stare and ability to break your arm off into a million pieces. Heck, go back and watch her infamous WrestleMania 31 promo that everybody raves about. No yelling. No screaming. No loud words. Just a couple of monotone one liners and amazing facial expressions. That is what made UFC millions and will make WWE millions. Anybody thinking she was this boisterous loud mouth clearly has never seen her talk before.
She can’t wrestle – We don’t know that yet. Hence the Angle teaming and battling HHH and Steph. Ronda Rousey is not going to walk into WWE and have a classic with Asuka. Or Charlotte Flair. Or Alexa Bliss. Or anybody really. This is going to be the special attraction bout of the event, and everybody knows it. The perfect way to introduce her to the wrestling audience and ease her into the squared circle. Putting her one on one with a seasoned pro trying to match Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair is unfair and ridiculous expectations. There’s a reason why there are so few UFC to WWE success stories. It takes time. With Ronda signed full-time and already invested in training, she’ll get there. In due time folks, in due time…
Long story short: Ronda Rousey has the perfect entrance theme, the ‘it factors’ you can’t teach, mainstream appeal, wrestling fandom as a kid, ability to draw, willingness to learn, great attitude and best of all – is going to rip the arm out of Stephanie McMahon’s socket! What’s the problem here exactly?
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