{"id":108957,"date":"2022-01-27T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T16:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=108957"},"modified":"2022-01-26T16:35:11","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T21:35:11","slug":"does-wwe-need-ronda-rousey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/01\/27\/does-wwe-need-ronda-rousey\/","title":{"rendered":"Does WWE Need Ronda Rousey?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With 2022\u2019s <strong><em>Royal Rumble <\/em><\/strong>event imminent, reports have circulated in the pro wrestling industry that former <strong><em>Monday Night Raw <\/em><\/strong>women\u2019s titleholder <strong>Ronda Rousey <\/strong>is possibly in talks to return to <strong>WWE<\/strong>. First reported by <strong>Sean Ross Sapp <\/strong>of <em>Fightful, \u00a0<\/em>speculation was later elaborated by other sources. <strong>Bryan Alvarez<\/strong> asserted on <em>Wrestling Observer Live <\/em>that Rousey will be a surprise entrant in the women\u2019s <em>Royal Rumble<\/em> match itself. If so, she would be following on the heels of <strong>IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong> Knockouts Champion <strong>Mickie James,<\/strong> WWE Hall of Famers <strong>Lita, Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, <\/strong>and other female WWE Superstars returning for January 29\u2019s pay-per-view event. Rousey has not appeared on WWE programming since <em><strong>WrestleMania 35<\/strong>,<\/em> losing the Raw Women&#8217;s Championship to <strong>Becky Lynch<\/strong> in a triple threat opposite Lynch and then-<strong><em>Friday Night SmackDown<\/em><\/strong> women\u2019s titleholder <strong>Charlotte Flair.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"I-sXANfQSaNpaFZSXRFTZw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/846238464\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'I-sXANfQSaNpaFZSXRFTZw',sig:'ia2-JZB3eew4fHd_5TNmolQDoC5UngaJEy5aDKCnFrs=',w:'594px',h:'411px',items:'846238464',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Does WWE Need Ronda Rousey Back?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>The Role The &#8220;Rowdy&#8221; Star Played<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Lynch famously claimed both titles in the history-making first women\u2019s match to close <em>WrestleMania<\/em>. It was a coronation for Lynch, solidifying her unexpected place at the top of WWE\u2019s women\u2019s roster, buoyed by a groundswell of organic fan support for the gutsy, ambitious, underdog persona \u201cThe Man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, it was Rousey who, it could be said, was meant to be the fulcrum of WWE\u2019s image overhaul regarding its women\u2019s division. Sparked by the outraged hashtag #GiveDivasAChance, 2018 began a revolution in WWE\u2019s presentation of its female athletes and their matches. Rousey, the groundbreaking <strong>Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/strong> athlete and judo competitor, was the personification of the new direction. A revered athlete, with name recognition and mainstream marketability, she cut a starkly formidable figure amongst the veterans of the Divas division, and the problematic dynamics they represented, and the WWE Performance Center alumni like the \u201cFour Horsewomen.\u201d With her icy stare, donning <strong>Roddy Piper\u2019s<\/strong> leather jacket, Rousey\u2019s gimmick was that there was no gimmick: she was a fighter, the very thing that WWE\u2019s women were striving to be taken seriously as.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, WWE very much needed Rousey\u2019s athletic credibility. She headlined the first, and so far only, all-female WWE PPV, <em><strong>Evolution<\/strong>, <\/em>facing off against Nikki Bella<strong>.<\/strong> Her matches vying against competitors like <strong>Alexa Bliss <\/strong>and <strong>Nia Jax <\/strong>helped WWE showcase the new gravity with which they professed to treat its female athletes. However, time has moved quickly apace since Rousey\u2019s quiet departure following her defeat to Lynch.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-full wp-image-40210 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/03\/Becky-Lynch-squares-off-with-Ronda-Rousey-Raw-e1552010688309.jpg\" alt=\"Women's Wrestling\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Following the Departure of Ronda Rousey From WWE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The women\u2019s roster that Rousey was the face of during the inception of the \u201cwomen\u2019s revolution\u201d did not escape the culling of the company\u2019s widespread releases of 2020-21. The division has suffered from these releases, the long-term absence of two of its most athletically robust performers, <strong>Asuka <\/strong>and <strong>Bayley,<\/strong> and critically panned storyline directions like <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/06\/08\/alexa-bliss-gimmick-remains-a-problem\/\" target=\"_self\">Bliss\u2019s long-running supernatural arc<\/a>. The revolution, as it were, has a second generation of compelling athletes in <strong>Rhea Ripley, Shotzi, Xia Li, Doudrop,<\/strong> and <strong>Bianca Belair,<\/strong> but all of these names, including the phenom that Belair was built to be throughout 2020 and 2021, have suffered from the erratic booking of WWE\u2019s women\u2019s division.<\/p>\n<p>The tension between Rousey and her competitors, such as Bella, during her 2018-19 run was organic: with her accomplishments, she was drastically different from all that had come before in WWE, but emblematic of what it was aspiring for. She wouldn\u2019t be an easy fit in 2022\u2019s women\u2019s division, a far less aspirational place.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Potential Role Reversal of Rousey and Lynch<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>If there is a story for Rousey, then it is opposite Becky Lynch. Lynch is once again Raw Women\u2019s Champion, and once again, it is not without controversy. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/08\/21\/becky-lynch-returns-summerslam-womens-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">Her squash victory over Belair at 2021\u2019s <strong><em>SummerSlam<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0drew the ire of fans and industry insiders, just as her <em>WrestleMania 35<\/em> win over Rousey was controversial.<\/p>\n<p>Lynch\u2019s grassroots popularity came to overshadow Rousey\u2019s place as the antiheroine du jour of the women\u2019s division. As Lynch rose as a beloved tweener, Rousey turned heel, making antagonistic statements about her disdain for pro wrestling and its fans. Although speculation gathered in the aftermath of their <em>WrestleMania<\/em> triple threat that Lynch\u2019s awkward pin on Rousey was meant to spark a future storyline, Rousey\u2019s absence from WWE was followed by Lynch\u2019s parental leave a year later. The two have not crossed paths.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>In Closing<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>When and if they do cross paths, their history awaits them. The foundation of Lynch\u2019s \u201cBig Time Becks\u201d persona is her groundbreaking win, over Rousey and Flair, and the halcyon days for her that followed. Rousey is the only woman who could cry foul on Lynch\u2019s glory. Bliss is deep in a gimmick with little room for anyone but herself; Nikki and Brie Bella will most likely not appear any further than the Rumble. Of Rousey\u2019s old adversaries, only Lynch would be worth her ire, and the momentum of hashing out <em>WrestleMania 35<\/em> could propel them into the dream singles match the two have yet to fight.<\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;18868&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With 2022\u2019s Royal Rumble event imminent, reports have circulated in the pro wrestling industry that former Monday Night Raw women\u2019s titleholder Ronda Rousey is possibly in talks to return to WWE. First reported by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, \u00a0speculation was later elaborated by other sources. Bryan Alvarez asserted on Wrestling Observer Live that Rousey [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":37263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,2192,25,26,317,4,3,320],"tags":[168,229,160,163,2085,1445,1636,333,254,1284],"class_list":["post-108957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-wrestling","category-raw","category-smackdown","category-women","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-alexa-bliss","tag-asuka","tag-bayley","tag-becky-lynch","tag-bella-twins","tag-bianca-belair","tag-brie-bella","tag-mickie-james","tag-nikki-bella","tag-ronda-rousey"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}