UFC Hall of Famer and former WWE star Ronda Rousey appeared on Power 105.1 FM’s Breakfast Club to discuss various topics, including her legacy.
Rousey said, “I think it’s giving women in combat sports a career, and that didn’t exist before. You know, I won an Olympic medal and came home and was like, ‘Maybe I’ll be a cocktail waitress.’ [laughs] There was nothing you could do. So now it’s really leaked over not just from MMA, but into boxing and pro wrestling. Women are really making like, record-breaking paydays and stuff like that. Actually able to make a living and career from from combat sport. Which I feel like I had a big part of that.”
On how WWE Hall of Famer Paul Heyman helped inspire the idea for her graphic novel by asking her a question on the RAW before WrestleMania 35 to get her mind off her nerves after Vince McMahon tore up the script:
“Well, I guess like how this started — it was strange. It was the go-home [episode of Raw} before WrestleMania, where I was set to be [in] the first-ever woman’s main event with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. In true WWE fashion, it was about 7 o’clock. The doors had already opened in the arena, and Vince had torn apart the whole script of the day. And we didn’t know what the hell we were going to do, and we were about to be out in the arena. So I was kind of freaking out. Paul Heyman pulled me aside. I think he was just trying to like get me to stop being less nervous, and thinking about something else. And he was saying, ‘What kind of movie do you want to star in?’ I’m like, ‘What do you — what?’ He was like, ‘What kind of movie would you want to star in?’ I’d never thought about that, because I’d been a little spoiled brat waiting for someone just to hand me my greenlit dream project ready to go. And I didn’t realize until that moment, like ‘I don’t know? What is the role that I could play better than anybody else could?’”
On how that led to the graphic novel:
“And I’m not Meryl Streep. I don’t have a huge range, but a very narrow range. I can hit it like a bullet, you know what I mean? So I was thinking, ‘Okay, what would be–?’ I’ve always wanted to do a martial arts film. What would be a character only I could do? And I was thinking that like my favorite martial arts films are usually like going from point A to point B, like The Raid. You’re going from the bottom of the building to the top of the building. And so I was like, ‘Okay, well maybe the chick is pregnant and everyone’s trying to kill her. So she’s trying to get rid of the baby, because it’s not safe.’ She has to fight her way to the abortion clinic. And by the time she gets there, she’s had all these close calls with the baby on the way that by the time she gets there, she’s gone through this this whole journey of whether she wants to become a mother or not. She kind of has to find it out… So this is like John Wick on the way to the abortion clinic, but you know it’s also a romantic comedy. So I like to say it’s like John Wick meets Knocked Up.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
