Ronda Rousey makes brutal Vince McMahon vs Dana White comparison as she reveals WWE regret
It’s fair to say Ronda Rousey still has very few positive things to say about her time in WWE.
The UFC Hall of Fame star is one of the finest MMA athletes of all time but fared decidedly less well when transitioning to the wrestling world.
A long-time WWE fan, she featured occasionally at major events before joining as a member of the roster in early 2018.
Across a number of spells, she wrestled for over six years and, on paper, achieved an incredible amount as a Royal Rumble winner and multi-time world champion.
She left in 2023 after a final feud with good pal Shayna Baszler and, it appears, has absolutely no intention of going back.
In the years following her exit – and with the publication of her autobiography – she has never held back in criticising the company and its boss Vince McMahon.
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Now, in a wave of new interviews, she’s unleashed a fresh attack on McMahon and WWE as environment – one she still maintains was an ‘absolute s***show.
Speaking to The Lapsed Fan podcast, she even gave an indirect jab to colleague Alexa Bliss, one of the company’s most decorated performers.
Rousey has attacked WWE’s decision to have them work together to capitalise on merchandise sales, complaining: “The fact that they had me fighting Alexa Bliss at all was f ridiculous.
“You wanna know why they had me against Alexa Bliss? Because she had the most merch sales at the time… Like, what the f***? That’s your decision-making process?”
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The business savvy behind having one of their most high-profile names wrestle with a top merchandise seller might seem sound in some senses, but it left the fighter furious.
Much of her anger was directed at McMahon’s running of WWE at the time, principally the creative aspect.
Venting at the decision to play down the on-screen impact of her armbar submission finishing move, Rousey says she told fellow wrestler Nia Jax of McMahon: “I’m like an avatar for a f****** 80-year-old f****** pervert on the phone, alright? I have no say in this. What are we supposed to do?”
She later followed up: “It’s just an absolute s***show. There was no collaboration.
“It was basically, like, you would spend so much time and effort thinking about the story and how you could make it better and they wouldn’t talk to you at all and they would spend like five minutes thinking about it the night before, and then throw you a version of it that was a complete s***, and it wasn’t a collaboration.”
Rounding again on her former boss, she blasted McMahon as a ‘roundabout d***’, comparing him to her UFC chief Dana White and the comparatively straightforward working relationship they appear to have enjoyed.
“Working with Dana, who was like the most straightforward person ever and then, Vince would just say whatever he had to say to get me out of the room and then do some shiesty, carny s*** after that and I’m like: ‘The f*ck!?’
“It just got to a point where I’m like, I can’t work with people who aren’t straightforward.”
Despite the 38-year-old’s evident anger at WWE and McMahon, a further interview with UnCrowned has revealed one lasting regret she appears to hold from her time in the ring.
Her final feud with Baszler was well received by critics and, at the time, did a superb job of allowing Baszler’s mic skills to flourish.
It was a fleeting chance to work with someone she felt close to. Baszler has since been released by WWE, while other pals of Rousey’s in Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke have also since departed.
Rousey and Shafir aligned briefly in AEW’s Ring of Honour, but a chance to do so again now appears lost – along with a pitch to share the screen with WWE’s famed Four Horsewomen, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Bayley and Sasha Banks.
Rousey shared: …"They ended up dropping all my friends, so I really have no reason to go back.
“I wanted to do a run with the Four Horsewomen and I never got to do that.
"And now I feel like I've already accomplished everything that I wanted to in WWE and all that's really left for me is to go there and have fun with my friends, and none of my friends are there anymore.”
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Rousey’s final match was under the AEW umbrella in 2023 when she teamed with Shafir. WWE held Evolution - an all-female event featuring cameos from legends of the past - earlier this year, but Rousey said of a role in the show: "I didn't hear from anybody. It was more of the way we left it was, they were like: 'There's always an open door; if you ever want to come back, let us know."
One final wrestling swansong now appears more unlikely than ever.