A Few Thoughts On My Girl Ronda Rousey's Rough Day

I spent my day in Charlotte, North Carolina with The Bavarian Hercules, One Man Thrill Ride’s Rough N Rowdy opponent. We’re filming some stuff for the 24/7 series leading into RNR3 on April 13th, and because of that, I was away from my phone and social media for most of the day. I didn’t think much of it. I knew Ronda Rousey wouldn’t do something stupid like go on a WrestleMania promotional media tour and rudely think Mike Golic wanted her to be a time traveler. She’d never. The animosity she’s had towards interviewers is in her past. She’s a changed woman full of positivity now!

So I get back to our hotel, open up the fantastic Barstool Sports app, and see this:

(shoutout Chaps on the great blog)

Ronda! What the fuck! You accused Mike Golic of wanting you to be a time traveler!

I love Ronda Rousey, the MMA fighter. Say what you will about Holm and Nunes “exposing her”, say what you will about her being the most overrated fighter of all time just because she was ahead of her time, whatever. Her run at the top was incredible and an absolute blast to watch and I’ll always hang on to that.

I like Ronda Rousey, the professional wrestler. I don’t “love” her in this right because she can’t cut a promo and I’ve never seen her actually wrestle before, but she did this last night…

…and I’ve seen some of her training footage where she looks competent, so I like her. The promo thing isn’t even her fault, really. Goldberg couldn’t cut a promo for shit back in WCW and it ain’t Brock Lesnar’s forte either. That’s a WWE issue, not a Ronda Rousey issue. Book her differently or strap her with a mouthpiece like Paul Heyman.

Now Ronda Rousey the person? Well…I’m not too high on her! I’ll say that! She definitely doesn’t have a great track record of being a great person between EVERYTHING that happened on her season of The Ultimate Fighter, not shaking Miesha Tate’s hand after tearing her arm off, possibly being a Sandy Hook truther, freaking out on Paige VanZant for congratulating Holly Holm on the win, never talking about her loss and refusing most media because of it – listen, she doesn’t have a good track record. That’s my point here. Her track record is actually really bad. Nothing in this interview surprised me in the slightest because of that, and I’d say it was honestly as true to form as it could’ve been. That’s kinda just who Ronda is, though. She’s a real life heel – how we say in French – an asshole. I don’t think, at heart, she’s a bad person, but she’s definitely a damaged person. Everyone is to some degree, maybe her a bit more than average, but it’s understandable because of her upbringing. So if you’d like to root for her as a wrestler, learn to separate the person from the character, and if you’d like to write her off as an insufferable bitch, you can do that too. If there’s anything my favorite Jedi heroes have taught me, though, it’s to always see the light in folks, and I still see it in Ronda.