Former WWE Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey has officially indicated that her in-ring career is over. In a candid interview on The Lapsed Fan podcast, Rousey revealed she is “pretty much” retired from professional wrestling, citing her frustration with WWE’s creative direction—specifically, the company’s failure to ever deliver on the long-teased Four Horsewomen storyline.
Rousey admitted her primary motivation for joining WWE in 2018 was to work with her real-life friends and fellow MMA Four Horsewomen—Shayna Baszler, Marina Shafir, and Jessamyn Duke. While the storyline was teased multiple times, WWE never pulled the trigger.
“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. And they kind of dangled that carrot for my whole run and never let it happen,” Rousey said. “And then the second run, they kept dangling it. And then by the end, I was like, I’m f*cking leaving unless I can wrestle with Shayna. And that’s how I was able to do it at all.”
Rousey’s final WWE match came at SummerSlam 2023, where she lost to Shayna Baszler in an MMA Rules Match. She explained that WWE’s refusal to let her maximize her potential creatively ultimately pushed her away.
“That’s what made me have to step away, because 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. So I can’t continue to do that. So I’m going to go f*cking be awesome and doing other things.”
Looking back, Rousey now views her WWE stint as a “sabbatical” that gave her valuable skills for other passions, including screenwriting and comic books.
“If anything, it was like I was doing like a sabbatical,” she said. “When you go off and you study something for years and come back and utilize what you learned, that was my wrestling sabbatical. I will take everything that I learned from that and apply it to all the other spaces that are bringing me joy.”
Since leaving WWE, Rousey has shifted her focus to her family and writing career. She and her husband, former UFC star Travis Browne, welcomed their second daughter earlier this year. She also recently completed the script for a Netflix film about her life and has a graphic novel, “Expecting the Unexpected,” set for release this October.
While she did wrestle in a handful of independent matches in late 2023 to help Marina Shafir, all signs now point to Rousey’s professional wrestling career being officially behind her.
The full interview with Ronda Rousey is available below.
