Ex-WWE Star Blasts “Pervert” Vince McMahon
A former WWE star hated working for Vince McMahon.
Ronda Rousey starred for WWE in two spells between 2018 and 2019, and later in 2022 through to August 2023.
During this period, she won the SmackDown Women’s Championship twice, the Raw Women’s Championship once, and the Women’s Tag Team Championship once. She also won the 2022 women’s Royal Rumble match after being part of the first women’s match to headline WrestleMania three years earlier.
However, it’s fair to say that she often found her time in WWE a frustrating and unfulfilling experience.
During an appearance on The Lapsed Fan podcast, Rousey reflected on her two runs with WWE, which included working under Vince McMahon. The star began by revealing that her armbar finisher came from Triple H as a way of working her legitimate MMA background into wrestling.
However, the move ended up causing controversy backstage after McMahon took a liking to it. This included Nia Jax screaming at her after she applied the move to Becky Lynch multiple times in a row.
In response, Rousey said she was just doing what she was told, as she was “an avatar for a f*cking 80-year-old f*cking pervert.”
“That was actually Triple H that came up with that, as being the mock armbar finisher. But, it’s also, like, you could see people laying back and they’re arching on the arm and they’re holding it straight and they’re holding it right from the — if you actually took it, it would break.
Yes (you can blame Triple H for the bent armbar). But how do you really — the one time I did do it when I leaned back on it straight was me and Becky (Lynch) … I think it was my heel turn or whatever and I felt like it had much more impact then. But, freakin’ Vince (McMahon) liked it so much, he was like, ‘Armbar her again! Armbar her again! Armbar her again!’…
I know when Nia Jax is all p*ssed at me afterward. She was like, ‘We spent all year selling the hell out of this armbar and you just did three of ‘em to Becky like it was nothing.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m like an avatar for a f*cking 80-year-old f*cking pervert on the phone, alright? I have no say in this. What are we supposed to do?’”
Rousey said that working for McMahon was a “sh*tshow” because of his constant changes to creative. She added that the process was far from the collaboration the company wanted fans to believe.
The former UFC star went on to say that although the process took the fun out of the job, there were some moments she was proud of, including her 2022 match with Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania Backlash.
“It’s just an absolute sh*tshow (working under Vince McMahon regime). There was no collaboration. It was basically, like, you would spend so much time and effort thinking about the story and how you could make it better and they wouldn’t talk to you at all and they would spend like five minutes thinking about it the night before, and then throw you a version of it that was a complete sh*tshow, and it wasn’t a collaboration.
It was like a negotiation to try to get it to not suck as much as possible, and then you go out there and it’s like, the final iteration of you trying to be, ‘Can this be changed? Can this be changed?’ How can I make this not absolutely f*cking suck?’
And then, you go out there and you do something that you have not even been able to practice and you don’t even really believe in and that’s what’s coming across, and so they were only, like, spending a little bit of time on The Bloodline because (Paul) Heyman was the head of all of that and he was like the Vince-whisperer of being able to get sh*t through, and it shows.
It shows that, oh, we’re gonna spend some time and effort on this and f*ck everybody else and we’re just gonna fly on the seat of our pants and that’s why they’re just doing the same rehash sh*t over and over and over again because that was just what Vince came up with the night before, you know?
And it was just all bottlenecked through there and just really took the funnest thing that is such a great time when you’re out there with your friends and you’re doing something you really believe in.
There was some flashes in the pan. He had some flashes of brilliance and there’s some days that we’d be able to hammer through something good, somehow be able to pull it off with no time to rehearse it. Like me and Charlotte’s ‘I Quit’ match, we didn’t have the match agreed upon when it was until 30 minutes before and I had 30 minutes to memorize it without even being able to be out there to practice it.”
Following her exit, it was reported that Ronda Rousey “despised” Vince McMahon by the time she left the company, later branding him a “f*cking sicko” in an interview.
Vince McMahon Was Scared Of Ronda Rousey
In the same interview, Ronda Rousey said Vince McMahon was “too scared” to say anything to her face regarding creative. Instead, she said he’d do “sheisty carny sh*t” behind her back, making him very difficult to work for.
Rousey said this was in contrast to UFC boss Dana White who was incredibly straightforward.
Ronda Rousey later admitted that a wrestling comeback is unlikely as she’s moved on to a new chapter of her life. She described her time with WWE as a “sabbatical” and she’s determined to use the lessons learned during her time with the company in her numerous new projects.
H/t to Fightful