Originally published at Ronda Rousey would only return to MMA for a fight against Gina Carano
A fight against Gina Carano is what would bring Ronda Rousey back into MMA.
Since departing the sport of MMA, Ronda Rousey ventured into pro wrestling and as of this writing, she is the SmackDown Women’s Champion and heading into her next title defense at the Money in the Bank Premium Live Event on July 2nd.
Rousey wrapped up her MMA career with a 12-2-0 record. She guest appeared on episode 71 of The Kurt Angle Show and Angle’s co-host asked if there’s a chance she’ll get back into the octagon. Rousey said she’d only come back for one person and that is Gina Carano, who has not fought since 2009.
No . Well… There’s only one person. There’s only one person I would come back for.
I mean, I’ve said it a million times. It’s not like it’s something new but, for Gina man. Gina Carano, she’s the reason why I got into fighting, she’s the reason why I knew it was a possibility. I will always be forever grateful… and if she ever was like, ‘Ronda, I wanna fight you tomorrow at 205 pounds,’ like whatever the hell she’d want — I’m not saying she’s 205 pounds — if she wanted to come into my backyard and do the Rocky thing or, you know, ding, ding and we just do it in the backyard, I don’t care. I will fight Gina wherever she wants and if she doesn’t want to forever, leave . It’s a respect thing, not like a, ‘F*ck you. I’m coming to get you.’ It’s just like, hey, if you ever wanna pull that card out, it’s there. I love her. Thank you Gina for everything you’ve done.
Elsewhere during their chat, the finish of WrestleMania 35 was discussed. Rousey, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair headlined the show with the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Titles on the line.
Lynch countered Rousey’s finisher into a crucifix pin, but Rousey’s shoulders lifted off the mat during the pin. She explained what happened in that moment and apologizes for it.
I didn’t think my shoulder was down. I was trying to flatten out to put my shoulder more down. So, that’s what was happening. I thought it was just very tops of my shoulder so I was trying to shimmy down ’till the actual backs of my shoulders was down and I didn’t know that he had already started counting so, my shoulder came up during the shimmy. So, I was trying to help but then you know what? It ended up being awesome because now I have a gripe to revisit.
But yeah, that wasn’t on purpose. I apologize about that one but, you know, I didn’t think it came up. It wasn’t until I saw it later, I’m like, aw sh*t. My bad, it’s kind of a big moment.
Looking back at her WrestleMania 31 segment with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Stephanie McMahon and Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, she shared that it all came together last minute. They were trying to sort everything out the day of.
It was just kind of like randomly thrown together, like last minute kind of a thing and just saw the big crowd reaction that we got and there’s kind of like, well, how we harness this to our advantage kind of a thing? So yeah, they’re like, all right, what’s one way they could have me be part of the show that exactly would put me over and they’re always very kind with outside people that they bring in — that I’ve noticed — to really set them up to succeed and they really did that for me from the very beginning and I really appreciate it.
Rousey debuted for WWE as a contracted talent at the 2018 Royal Rumble pay-per-view when she appeared at the conclusion of the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble match. Before signing with the company, Rousey said her only request was that she got to finish what she and Stephanie McMahon started at WrestleMania 31.
When I originally signed with them, my only request was that I wanted to finish up my storyline with Stephanie .
Circling back to the MMA front, Ronda shared her thoughts about Bellator MMA Women’s Featherweight Champion Cris Cyborg.
Rousey was asked why she thinks Cyborg ‘ducked’ her and Rousey said she’s not going to promote anyone who uses performance enhancing drugs, adding that if anyone gets caught using them, they should be banned for life.
You know what? I’m not gonna spend any of my time or energy promoting somebody that takes a bunch of steroids and cheats.
And I just wanna say that anybody that gets caught doping should be banned for life. Nobody dopes on accident, especially in MMA, and I would only take Flintstone vitamins going into the Olympics because I was like, whatever goes in my body is my responsibility and there’s no whoops. You don’t — whoops, steroids. No, no, no, no, no. Banned for life, forever buddy. Anybody that has ever got caught with any kind of P.E.D. is f*cking dead to me and that applies to a lot of names.
At the first WWE Mae Young Classic, there was an on-screen segment that saw Shayna Baszler, Rousey, Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke have a confrontation with Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and Bayley. Rousey stated that she wants to do a Horsewomen versus Horsewomen match but does not want to get her hopes up.
Not that I know of but it literally seems like the longest build in the history of women’s wrestling. Like if this ever happens, I will lose my mind probably. But we’ll see, I don’t know. I mean usually, they don’t think of a long game for a lot of the stuff they’re doing so this is the longest long game that has ever happened in wrestling so before I retire, I would love there to be a thing, with all of us but, I almost don’t wanna dare to hope at this point. We’ll see.
This upcoming title defense for Rousey at Money in the Bank is going to be her second since winning the belt at WrestleMania Backlash. Rousey was in action on the 6/10 SmackDown and defeated Shotzi.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Kurt Angle Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.