Wrestling / Ronda Rousey

The Baddest Woman on the Planet.

Stephanie McMahon: Get the hell out of my ring!
Ronda Rousey: Any ring I step into is MINE!

— WrestleMania 31

Ronda Jean Rousey (born February 1, 1987 in Riverside, California) is an American professional wrestler, mixed martial artist, former Olympic judoka and actress.

In 2018, Rousey signed with WWE, making her first appearance at that year's Royal Rumble event, though she previously appeared in WrestleMania 31 in 2015 as a Guest Fighter as a hint of her future entrance to WWE. Her official in-ring debut came at WrestleMania 34, and she went on to a smash-success rookie year, winning the Raw Women's Championship at SummerSlam, and going undefeated all the way until WrestleMania 35, where she lost the title to Becky Lynch in the first ever main-event women's match at 'Mania.

She then went on hiatus from WWE from several years, and made a surprise return in the 2022 Royal Rumble, ultimately winning the women's match of the PPV by eliminating Charlotte Flair.

On October 11, 2023, she announced her retirement from professional wrestling before being officially relesed by WWE on October 28. Said retirement lasted all of two weeks, after which she resumed wrestling on the independent circuit.

For tropes related to her movie and fighting career, check her Creator page.

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I don't give a damn about my tropetation!

• Arch-Enemy:
  • Ronda had problems with Stephanie McMahon long before she joined WWE. At WrestleMania XXXI, Ronda teamed up with The Rock to take on both Stephanie and her husband during a segment. Three years later, both women still had animosity for each other, and a match between the two was scheduled at WrestleMania XXXIV with Kurt Angle and Triple H as their respective tag team partners.
  • Following her feud with Stephanie, Ronda set her eyes on the Raw Women's Championship and challenged Nia Jax. However, their match was cut short by interference from Alexa Bliss who then cashed in her recently won Money in the Bank contract. A few months later, Nia and Ronda faced each other again at TLC, this time their roles were reversed. Proud of the number of injuries she left behind, Nia was confident going into the match, only to be defeated.
  • Alexa Bliss had problems with Ronda ever since her debut, calling Ronda a bully for breaking Stephanie's arm, despite Alexa being a bully herself. As mentioned above, Alexa interfered in Ronda's championship match against Nia Jax at Money in the Bank 2018, when it seemed Ronda was moments away from a win. Furious, Ronda attacked Alexa the following night, only to get suspended for a month. During her absence, Alexa constantly mocked Ronda. When Ronda returned a month later, she attacked Alexa again and was suspended for another week, but was given a title opportunity at SummerSlam 2018 as long as she stayed clear until then. Ronda won the match easily with Alexa failing to put up any offense. Alexa invoked her rematch clause a month later at Hell in a Cell 2018 and though she put up a fight that time, she still lost.
  • After Evolution, Ronda entered a feud with both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. She was initially scheduled to face the former at Survivor Series 2018 and after weeks of bashing each other, Becky attacked Ronda a week before their match. After Becky was pulled out following an injury, Charlotte replaced her and lost the match by DQ after attacking her with a kendo stick. Charlotte proudly declared that she too can beat up Rousey and the latter doesn't take both her beatings easily. At TLC 2018, Ronda interfered in the main event by pushing the ladder Becky and Charlotte were on, costing Becky her championship. After Becky won the 2019 Royal Rumble, she moved to Raw to challenge Ronda for the Raw Women's Championship at WrestleMania XXXV, continuing their feud, but Charlotte got involved in the feud again. Two years later, Ronda and Charlotte once again feuded for the SmackDown Women's Championship after Ronda eliminated Charlotte at the Royal Rumble and challenged her at WrestleMania. After a controversial finish in which Charlotte won, Ronda dethrones her at WrestleMania Backlash only to lose it again at the end of the year when Charlotte challenged her to an immediate title rematch after Ronda had retained against Raquel Rodriguez.
  • Liv Morgan become Ronda's enemy after Morgan cashed in her Money in the Bank contract on Ronda for the SmackDown Women's Championship. Though initially seeing Morgan as a Worthy Opponent, Ronda would challenge Morgan for the title at SummerSlam which ended up in a controversial finish. Furious, Ronda took out her frustration on WWE officials for the next few months and constantly mocked Morgan for being a lousy champion. At Extreme Rules, Ronda got her revenge and reclaimed the tittle from Morgan. A year later, the two would feud again, this time for the Women's Tag Team Championship, which Morgan was forced to relinquish prior due to injuries. At Money in the Bank, Morgan once again pinned Ronda to reclaim the championship for herself and Raquel Rodriguez.
• Badass Boast: While Ronda entered WWE with a fairly humble character (a far cry from her ultra confident, borderline psychotic swagger in the UFC), she was still prone to letting people know how much of a badass she is.
  • To Becky Lynch:
    Ronda: You may say that you're The Man, but I am the baddest bitch on the planet!
  • To Sasha Banks:
    Ronda: At the Royal Rumble, I'm going to show her that "The Boss" has to answer to somebody, and that's me, Ronda Rousey! I'm The Boss' boss, the HBIC^note (head bitch in charge), and the Raw Women's Champion!
  • To the fans booing her a week after her Face–Heel Turn on Raw:
    Ronda: No wonder Becky's your hero. She's the hero you deserve. She's a coward, just like all of you. Every single one of you booing me, you would cower in front of me if you couldn't hide in a crowd behind the safety of a barrier!
  • During the same segment, regarding her triple-threat match against Charlotte and Becky:
    Ronda: In fact, the WWE has my permission to make this into a handicap match; me against the two of them. I'd be embarrassed if I even broke a sweat.
• Berserk Button: Does NOT like being slapped or being declared someone's "property"; Stephanie McMahon hammered both buttons on back-to-back nights at Elimination Chamber and Raw in early 2018, and almost lost her arm for it.
• Boring, but Practical: In WWE, where female wrestlers regularly wear extravagant and brightly-colored outfits, Ronda tends to essentially wear regular, everyday street clothes.
• Death Glare: Basically has it down to an art form. Whenever she glares at someone, they're guaranteed to be screwed.
• Designated Girl Fight: Averted during her WWE career. In her debut feud against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, she spent nearly as much time fighting Triple H as she did fighting Stephanie, and often got the better of The Game with her boxing/judo prowess. She's also beaten down all-male security teams, has roughed up Kurt Angle and Baron Corbin with her bare hands, and even challenged the latter to a one-on-one match on the Nov. 19, 2018 episode of Raw.
• Early-Bird Cameo: WrestleMania 31 has her cameo appearance in a segment with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and The Rock, three years before her proper debut after being signed.
• Establishing Character Moment: During her WWE contract signing at 2018's Elimination Chamber PPV, she quickly turned from joyful and smiling to completely pissed off (as she's been known to do in real life), after Kurt Angle claimed that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon made disparaging remarks about Ronda behind her back. She responded by slamming Triple H through a table.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • After having enough of the fans cheering over her rival, Becky Lynch, Ronda finally lost her temper on the 4th March episode of Raw and attacked Becky and Charlotte.
  • She turned heel again by attacking Liv Morgan and the referee after their match at SummerSlam 2022 when Morgan supposedly tapped out to the armbar but Rousey's shoulders lie flat on the mat so the referee sees this as Morgan pinning Rousey. Words cannot even begin to express how she got screwed of a SmackDown Women's title win due to a bad call on the referee's part.
• Finishing Move: The arm bar, unofficially in her MMA career; taken on when she became a wrestler. It should be noted that her wrestling arm bar is different from a regular arm bar (which is called a cross arm breaker in pro wrestling, and not often used as a finisher). Her wrestling arm bar involves wrapping her legs around the opponent's neck, and she hooks their arm around hers completely differently.
• Foil: Her champion vs. champion feud with Becky Lynch heading into the 2018 Survivor Series paints her as this. While both are women who specialize in collecting people's arms, both are lifelong wrestling fans, and both fought their entire lives to become trailblazers for female combat athletes, Ronda was being trained to do so through mixed martial arts by her mother's stern upbringing in her formative years, while Becky got to have something of a childhood before leaving home to travel the world and learn wrestling by her own choice even though it displeased her mother. From a character standpoint, Ronda has consistently come off as someone who is humble and respectful and happy to be a part of WWE until someone disrespects her and provokes her dangerous fury, while Becky always maintained a rebellious streak even as an honorable babyface and just recently became increasingly arrogant, bitter, and self-righteous through her issues with Charlotte Flair. For pointers, Ronda considers it insulting that after fighting their entire lives to change the meaning of "fight like a girl", Becky would embrace her position as a leader in the WWE Women's Evolution by calling herself "The Man". Ronda also points out that despite the two being the same age (within two days in fact), Ronda was already more successful than Becky was for over a decade, having already being in the main event at UFC while Becky was still in training at the time (in addition to being forced to retire temporarily) as well as stealing the show at WrestleMania XXXIV while Becky was only at the pre-show. Heading into their WrestleMania feud, both women ultimately hit another breaking point involving WWE's corporate headaches and became a source of frustration for the McMahon family, leading Vince McMahon to insert Charlotte Flair into their match. However, while Becky became more a symbol of defiant valor who once more fully embraced the fans' undeniable love for her, bringing her back full circle into a true face, Ronda unleashed in Worked Shoot tirades against the fans who were already booing her and the controlled ^read:"fake" nature of the business while telling everyone how easily she could break her opponents, fully going back to the trash-talking competitive psychopath of her UFC fame.
• Foreshadowing: At one point during the buildup to their WrestleMania tag match, Ronda asked Stephanie McMahon which hand she uses to write, so that she'd know which one to rip off while still allowing Stephanie to sign her paycheck (she's a righty). Sure enough, come WrestleMania 34, Rousey made her tap out by breaking her left arm.
• Good Is Not Soft: She was a Face, happy to be in WWE, and willing to accept that the insults made by the H's were in fact a miscommunication by Kurt Angle, but Ronda made it clear to Stephanie McMahon on the RAW after EC 2018 that crossing her, like a slap to the face, won't go unnoticed and demanded an apology or otherwise she'd rip Steph's arm out of her socket; Stephanie wasted no time in stammering out an apology and hastily left the ring.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Usually wears a black leather jacket in the ring.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: In WWE with Natalya Neidheart, being good friends and partners inside and outside the ring.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Her WWE unbeaten streak finally came to an end when she tried to hit Becky Lynch with the Piper's Pit finisher, only for Becky to counter it into a pinning combination and hold Ronda down for the three-count.
• Insult Backfire: The Bella Twins try cutting her down to size by stating that they've knocked down more doors than her in WWE, to which Ronda responds that she's knocked down far more doors in a far longer time (in judo, MMA and wrestling), and they've only gotten by through having famous husbands.
• Legacy Character: To Roddy Piper, as far as her WWE run goes. Apart from borrowing the "Rowdy" nickname and taking cues from his gear, she adopted the Piper's Pit as her pinfall finisher.
• Man in a Kilt: Inverted and Played With. In WrestleMania 34, her fighting outfit includes a kilt in her entrance, in homage to her idol Roddy Piper.
• No-Sell: One of the few people who managed to withstand Stephanie McMahon's slap with little reaction other than being absolutely pissed.
• Red Baron:
  • Rowdy
  • The Baddest Woman on the Planet
  • The Arm Collector
• Shout-Out:
  • In her brief appearance in 2018 Royal Rumble, she was dressed as Roddy Piper, with the black leather jacket and a white/red t-shirt with the modified phrase "Hot Ronda" on it instead of the classic "Hot Rod." If Ronda uses Rowdy's motto in WWE, she will revive a historical gimmick to the new generation, similar to Ric Flair's daughter Charlotte Flair having his.
  • Her entrance to WrestleMania 34 was a mix of her UFC fighting outfit and Roddy Piper's classic outfit with the "Rowdy" on her white top, the black leather jacket and a red kilt.
• Take That, Critics!: Her entrance music, Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation", is basically a shot at critics who accuse her of having an attitude problem and henceforth a, well, bad reputation.
• While You Were in Diapers: Downplayed during a segment in which she addressed her champion-vs.-champion match against Becky Lynch at 2018's Survivor Series. Ronda is actually just barely younger than Becky (by two days), but she still reminded Lynch how much more experience she has as an athlete:
  Ronda: While your alarm was waking you up every morning for school, my mother was waking me up out of a dead sleep, trying to break my arms! While you were in clown college, I was training for the Olympics! And while you were a stewardess serving snacks, I was in the midst of the most dominant title reign the sport of MMA has ever seen!

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