Raw Women’s champion has done a lot of good in WWE from the moment Ronda Rousey stepped in the ring at the Wells Fargo Center right here in Philadelphia after the 2018 Royal Rumble match and pointed to that WrestleMania sign. She came in and added some legitimacy to an already thriving Women’s division. Due to her main stream fame, she was able to bring more eyes to the WWE screen, and elevate the women to feel ever bigger than they already got on the backs of the likes of Asuka, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair. Rousey was flying high, and then she called wrestling FAKE and sent the entire Internet Wrestling Community into a frenzy.
True wrestling fans know, you DO NOT use the f-word when talking about the magic that is professional wrestling. Some will say Ronda stepped over the line, but do you honestly believe that Vincent Kennedy McMahon would allow someone on his payroll to openly talk down his empire, and he would keep them on said payroll? I don’t care how much merch you sell, no one defiles the business. NO. ONE. To call the women on the WWE roster, the women who made the WWE a place worth coming to for someone with the stature of Rousey, “fake” and “b--ches” is an insult to all of the women on the roster currently, and all of the women who paved the way for the superstars of today. No one has the right to disrespect the business that brings the rest of us so much joy and entertainment. Although…
Now, more than ever, WWE has become aware that most people “get it.” We might not know why certain things happen, or how they are pulled off, or how much effort goes in to keeping the secrets of the business, but more times now than ever do the superstars talk on-screen about things that are normally reserved for off-screen. Referring to each other by real names instead of character names, letting the superstars have their real names present on social media, even going as far as letting superstars have advertisement deals as long as they aren’t shown during WWE TV (sans Brock Lesnar, shout out to Jimmy Johns). We all generally accept the entertainment for what it is, a TV show, but we allow the fleece to be pulled over our eyes and we treat the art form like a competition, even though we know that the people in the ring know what will happen next. Now it comes to Ronda.
Ronda Rousey has changed the game in the birthplace of hardcore two years in a row now, and both times for the better! When Ronda first showed up in WWE, a lot of people, myself included, was hoping she would be presented similarly to Brock Lesnar since his return from UFC: a real, big-time UFC fighter who is here to take names and take arms. When she was introduced as a happy-go-lucky babyface, I was disappointed, but I understood. This wasn’t a problem for her, until Becky showed up as the badass Ronda could have been. We all loved her for it, but now Ronda was at a cross-road. Becky was doing all the things we thought Ronda might do. Ronda had to do something to not only establish herself as the favorite at WrestleMania for the Raw Women’s Championship, but to make sure as the champion that she was the focus. This past Monday, she doubled-down. She called Becky and Charlotte “carney con-artists.” She even attacked the fans, saying they can “take (their) applause and shove it” and “anyone who believes in this…is a joke.” We felt insulted, but for some reason it just felt right.
Through the entire video Ronda is herself. When talking about other wrestlers she is super excited. When it comes to her competition, all gloves were off. She peeled back the curtain and let us all know how she ‘truly feels.’ She is the baddest woman on the planet, and she will beat up any woman who gets in her way. This is not a time to argue about whether kayfabe is dead, this is the time to do what we are supposed to: Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. And this ride, leads right to WrestleMania.