As I watched Smackdown this week, I kept seeing the hashtag Fire Ronda Rousey, and it made me want to dig into the topic, and maybe find a clear reason why. As is sometimes the nature of Twitter, this isn't always as easy as you might think...
Before I begin this I suppose I ought to present the position I am coming from. I'd describe myself as a lapsed fan of Ronda Rousey. I was a guy who used to wake up at 5am UK time, and watch Ronda's UFC fights, then after she usually won in a couple of minutes would go back to sleep for a bit before getting up for work. I was thrilled when she appeared at Wrestlemania 31 with the Rock, and when she got in the ring at Wrestlemania 34. Everything after Wrestlemania 35 has admittedly been a bit off to me, I feel like she should have been more of a special attraction than a regular roster member, and she definitely doesn't feel like a special attraction anymore.
When the whole issue with Sasha Banks and Naomi happened earlier this year, my hope for the Women's tag titles was that Ronda and Shayna Bayzler would take the belts and hold them for a long time. Back then it had only barely been acknowledged that the two are friends in training videos for this years Wrestlemania, but at the time I'm writing this they are regularly together on Smackdown, so I might still get my wish down the line. As I watched Smackdown this week I was keeping an eye on Twitter, and the Fire Ronda Rousey hashtag was trending, inspiring me to look further into it.
Before I get deeper into this I'd like to note that the points I am making are based on a couple of days worth of research, and if I am missing something I'd really appreciate if you let me know in the comments, and I might even make a follow up video if there is enough that I haven't covered here.
At a cursory first glance. some of it seemed to come from fans who simply prefer other women on the WWE roster, but then I found that a fair bit seems to come specifically from Sasha Banks fans. I then found a clip from Kurt Angle's podcast from a year ago that people are bringing back up now, where Sasha flat out, in no uncertain terms says she didn't like the star treatment Ronda walked into WWE with. While I completely understand why Sasha or anyone on the WWE roster might think like this, I don't really take her side on this occasion. This is the same issue that CM Punk had with the Rock coming back and taking the WWE title and thus the Wrestlemania main event away from him. I leaned towards Punks side back then, these days not so much.
One thing I'd like to point early on is that this podcast aired in November 2021, and Ronda wasn't even an active member of the roster at the time, given that she would return at the Royal Rumble two months later. Admittedly I haven't sat through the whole thing, and some fans have the view that Sasha was being in character, but at the time this was recorded Ronda wasn't around, and by the time she returned Banks and Naomi were an active team, while Ronda won the Rumble, so I can't see why Sasha's comments would be made to build a match when the two were clearly on different paths. It's also not like this would be a first time ever dream match either, as the two wrestled at the 2019 Royal Rumble, with Ronda winning that night.
Sasha says and I am quoting here, "Who is you and what you do", which I'm aware sounds awful in my accent, but the point is she clearly has little respect for Rondas previous accomplishments. This is baffling to me for reasons I'll get to laster in this video, but this is who Ronda Rousey is. According to an article published in November 2022 by Give Me Sport which I'll link in the description, Ronda main evented two of the ten highest drawing UFC PPV's in history, with both drawing over 1.1 million buys. There are only two WWE pay per views that ever beat that number, Wrestlemania 23 and 28. Before any of this, Ronda Rousey was the face of a division the UFC didn't even want to promote initially. Along with the likes of Miesha Tate, Holly Holm, Amanda Nunes and others, Ronda drew millions of dollars at the box office. Around the same time Sasha and her peers aspired to the same thing in WWE, taking women's wrestling further than it had gone before. As a fan who appreciated both, I'd argue that the WWE women's revolution TM and the rise of Women in UFC happening around the same time is no coincidence. To make myself really clear, I think it is unfair and even narrow minded to consider Ronda as someone who was just handed everything just because she made her name elsewhere.
To broaden the scope a bit, nearly forty years ago Wrestlemania 1 was built on the integration of stars from other worlds from Cindi Lauper to Mr. T, to Liberace. Wrestlemania 11 was main evented by an NFL outside linebacker whatever that means, which is my one English joke for this video. Sometimes WWE has gone overboard with involving famous people from outside the ring. I imagine if she were around at the time Sasha would have hated the horrible Guest Host era of Raw, where celebrities would come in for a week, get their lines wrong, and plug some shite movie they were in. Can you tell I hated that too, except the week that the Muppets were there...
Let me get back on track here by bringing up a modern equivalent. Logan Paul is another famous person who made his fame and infamy elsewhere. He drew over a million PPV buys for his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, and according to boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, his second match with KSI did two million, which would make it the 5th highest grossing pay per vier ever, way higher than any pay per view WWE has ever done. Logan also recently main evented Crown Jewell against Roman Reigns, after only two previous matches, and all three have generally been critically acclaimed. Admittedly I'm not the closest follower of WWE News, but as far as I'm aware you don't see many of WWE's male roster complaining about Logan being treated like a top star from the jump. There is even speculation of what dream match he could have at Wrestlemania 39 assuming he is healed up from his injuries, implying that people are looking forward to more of Logan being featured prominently.
I took way longer than I expected to in explaining why I don't agree with Sasha's comments, but this other reason that I found won't take long to debunk. Reading further I found an article from Forbes, link down below, that claimed that the Fire Ronda hashtag came from a botched DDT spot in her Survivor Series match with Shotzi. Admittedly I skipped that match on the night so didn't see the offending move, but having seen it since this is just ridiculous. If Maffew of Botchamania has taught up anything, it should be that botches happen all the time to any wrestler on any given night. If wrestlers were fired for a single botched spot guess what? There would be no wrestlers left. I broadened my last argument so I'll do it again here, every single one of us make mistakes, and unless its a really big one, most of us don't get fired for just one. Okay, rant over.
I started this video by disclosing that I was at one point a fan of Ronda Rousey, and that may well colour my perception a bit. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'd also like to thank you if you stuck with me until the end.
Sources:
Sasha Banks on Kurt Angle Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bhgPjolnQs
UFC PPV highest buyrates https://www.givemesport.com/1766855-ufc-top-10-biggest-earning-ppv-events-in-history-ranked
Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2022/11/29/fire-ronda-rousey-survivor-series-match-sparks-backlash-from-overzealous-fans/?sh=6e7e1d816ff1
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