Ever since her debut appearance at the end of the Royal Rumble, “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey has scaled to the pinnacle of the women’s division with high calibre matches at WrestleMania and the subsequent pay-per-views with eventually claiming her maiden title at Summerslam.
The RAW Women’s champion was recently a guest on the PWI Podcast hosted by Al Castle and Dan Murphy. Rousey mentioned that she was unaware about the house shows in the WWE schedule and is privileged to have a much lenient schedule as compared to her colleagues. She also happened to mention that she gained respect for the wrestlers after having come to understand their hectic schedules. Rousey said:
“Being on the road and everything has given me a lot more respect for what everybody else does.” Rousey said, “I mean, honestly, when I came into this, I thought everybody just wrestled once a week! I just thought they showed up at RAW or SmackDown [Live] and that was it. I didn’t even know that there were live shows throughout the week! I mean, and these people just go nonstop. Like, I have nowhere near the schedule that everybody else has. Like, if I’m on a week of live shows, it takes me a week to recover from it. If anything, I have the super easy tourist version. Like, I have nothing to complain about! I do whatever I can to perform whenever they need me to perform, but I have a much easier schedule than everybody else.”
Rousey also commented on being ranked first on the prestigious PWI 100 for women. She claimed that it is a huge honour for her while also doubting her place on the top of the list. Rousey stated:
That’s absolutely incredible. I don’t really know how to react to that! I mean, I really appreciate it. I don’t know how much I deserve it, but wow! Thank you!” Rousey added, “it [has] been amazing. It [has] been a dream come true and I’m at a loss for words, but I’m not an articulate person.”
Finally, Rousey mentioned that she expected the WWE Universe to reject her due to her transition from the MMA background to sports entertainment.
“Honestly, coming into this, I expected all the fans and all the people in the locker room to hate my guts from day one. I really did! I was really blindsided by how accepting and amazing everybody has been, and how amazing the WWE Universe has been, and how amazing everybody in the locker room has been. I mean, like, I’m really not hear for a quick paycheck, or some extra fame, or anything like that. Honestly, I really love this business. I really want to contribute as much as I can and I don’t want to take credit for the women’s evolution. I don’t want to take away from what everyone has been doing. I just want to be a catalyst and I want to be able to speed up what’s going on here and bring more attention and more value to all the work that these women are doing. If I can do that in the least, then I’m happy.”
