Ronda Rousey says she won’t return to the WWE ring full-time due to the travel burden and the “ungrateful fans”.
Speaking this week on the “Wild Ride! with Steve-O” podcast, the former Raw Women’s Champion didn’t hold back when discussing the company’s travel schedule and the fanatics that keep WWE afloat.
“It was just not worth it for my family because we were eliminating all of our expenses and living this lifestyle, we didn’t need it. We didn’t need the money,” Rousey said.
“So it’s just like, what am I doing it for if I’m not being able to spend my time and my energy on my family, but instead spending my time and energy on a bunch of (expletive) ungrateful fans that don’t even appreciate me? The thing is I love performing. I love the girls. I love being out there but, at the end of the day, I was just like, ‘(expletive) these fans, dude.’”
Rousey was a judo champion and 2008 Olympic medallist who rose to fame in the UFC, becoming the first female fighter to sign with the company in 2012. The former women’s bantamweight champion finished her ultimate fighting career with a 12-2 record and was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2018.
Rousey said if she ever comes back to WWE, it won’t be in a full-time role but for brief chunks of time.
“I needed to do it in order to learn and get immersed into it and really understand what was going on but it’s just not the lifestyle for me,” Rousey said.
Rousey said she discovered during a physical exam before joining the WWE that she had a broken vertebrae in her lower back. She said in the rare cases when she was at home, she needed to lay down with a heating pad on her back and a Tempur-Pedic pillow under her neck.
“I love the WWE. I had such a great time. I love all the girls in the locker room,” Rousey said. “Running out there and having fake fights for fun is just the best thing ... It was so fun. But I was doing basically part-time and I was away from home over 200 days out of the year. And when I did get home, I basically was so sleep deprived because you just don’t have time to lay down.”
