Ronda Rousey considers her pro wrestling career effectively finished, citing deep-seated frustration with WWE’s creative direction as the primary reason for her departure. Appearing on The Lapsed Fan podcast, Rousey stated that wrestling is “pretty much” in her rearview mirror, explaining that her main motivation for joining the company—to work with her friends in the Four Horsewomen—was a promise WWE never fulfilled.
Her frustration stemmed from what she described as a constantly dangled carrot. “I got into WWE because I wanted to be able to wrestle with my girls, you know, the Four Horsewomen and be able to wrestle with my friends,” Rousey said. “And they kind of dangled that carrot for my whole run and never let it happen.”
This dynamic continued into her second run with the company. The storyline potential was visible from her very first appearance at the 2018 Royal Rumble, where she confronted Charlotte Flair. It culminated in her headlining WrestleMania 35 against two of the Horsewomen, Flair and Becky Lynch, but a collaborative storyline never materialized.
Ultimately, Rousey forced the issue to work with the final member of the group, Shayna Baszler. “By the end, I was like, I’m fcking leaving unless I can wrestle with Shayna,” she revealed. This demand directly led to their partnership in 2023, where they captured the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship and later unified it with the NXT Women’s Tag Team titles. The alliance was built specifically to implode, leading to Baszler’s turn at Money in the Bank and Rousey’s final WWE match, a loss to Baszler at SummerSlam 2023.
Rousey characterized the creative environment as stifling, leading to her final decision to walk away from the industry.
“It got to the point where I’m just like, they’re never going to allow me to make it as good as it can be, and, like, meeting them halfway in this range of mediocrity is like crushing my soul,” she stated. “So I can’t continue to do that.”
Instead of viewing the chapter as a loss, Rousey now frames her time in WWE as a learning experience that she can apply to her current projects, which include writing a graphic novel and a screenplay for Netflix.
“If anything, it was like I was doing like a sabbatical,” Rousey explained. “I will take everything that I learned from that and apply it to all the other spaces that are bringing me joy.”