The WWE has gone all in on Ronda Rousey since she made her in-ring debut at WrestleMania 34 last year. The Baddest Woman on the Planet has gone against the best that the WWE has to offer, defeating the likes of Sasha Banks, Bayley, Alexa Bliss, Nia Jax, and Charlotte, just to name a few.
The Raw Women’s Champion will more than likely be in the main event of WrestleMania 35, facing off against Becky Lynch…and more than likely Charlotte as well. After that show, however, it’s unknown what’s next for Rousey. It’s been rumored that she’s looking to take a break after Mania to spend some time with her family.
With a contract that will supposedly keep her signed until 2021, it’s not like she’ll be leaving the company altogether, but the company could be without one of their top draws for some time. That, of course, doesn’t bother Vince McMahon.
In the WWE’s fourth-quarter earnings call today, the Chairman was asked if Rousey’s signing would be considered a failure if she were to leave after a year. His response was…well…what we’d expect from McMahon.
Again, we can bring people in from the outside to our environment. It can’t be just a one-off type thing because our audience realizes that’s not going to push the envelope as far as their enjoyment of what we do.
Nonetheless, bringing Ronda in gave us more visibility in terms of the initiative of reaching more women. And when you do something like that it allows you to not just use Ronda’s platform from a different niche to come into WWE, Ronda in of herself becomes a brand of WWE.
It’s a different Ronda than what you saw before, in terms of UFC and things of that nature.
McMahon went on to talk about how important Ronda Rousey was for elevating the entire women’s division, claiming that her competitors have been given a rub thanks to their encounters with the champion.
When you put talent, rub talent up against Ronda, Ronda can help us make talent, and she’s doing just that. She knows how to do it, she’s one of the brightest people we’ve ever done business with. And the fact that she’s adapted to the WWE culture so fast, it really is truly an amazing salute to her as an athlete, and as a human being.
McMahon finished by saying that the “Rondas will come in and out” but that the company will always manage to plan around it.
