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Ronda Rousey liked a lot of things about pro wrestling, but being away from her family and dealing with WWE fans quickly soured her on things.
Ronda Rousey has been away from pro wrestling for a year now, finishing up her run in the main event of WrestleMania 35. It had been rumored recently that she was talking to WWE about a return before COVID-19 changed things for everyone. But as a guest on Steve-O’s podcast, the former UFC and WWE champ vented about wrestling fans and revealed that she would never work a full-time schedule again (transcribed by MMA Fighting):
“I love WWE – I had such a great time. I love all the girls in the locker room. Like hell yeah, running out there, having fake fights for fun is just the best thing. I love choreography, I love acting, I love theater. It’s live theater. It’s one of the last forms of live theater, and it’s so fun.
“But I was basically doing it part time, and I was away from home over 200 days out of the year. When I did get home, basically I was so sleep deprived because you just don’t have time to lay down, and my back’s broke. My bottom vertebrae is like broken in half. They got me appraised like a house before I came to WWE, and they’re like, ‘Your back’s broke,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t, didn’t know that. That explains a lot!’”
In the end, her family (Rousey is married to former UFC heavyweight Travis Browne) came first, and performing for people that didn’t treat her with the proper reverence soured her on the experience:
“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. So it’s just like, what am I doing it for if I’m not being able to spend my time and energy on my family, but instead spending my time and energy on a bunch of f—king ungrateful fans that don’t even appreciate me.
“I love performing,” Rousey said. “I love the girls. I love being out there, but at the end of the day I was just like f—k these fans, dude. My family loves me and they appreciate me. I want all my energy to go into them. So that was my decision at the end of the day.”
Rousey didn’t completely shut down an eventual return, but she doesn’t want to be a traveling pro wrestler again:
“If I ever do come back, it will never be at a full-time capacity ever again,” Rousey said. “I think like for stints, for chunks of time. No, I’ll never be full time again over 200 days a year on the road like that ever again.”