Ronda Rousey says wrestling is ‘pretty much’ in her rearview mirror
With nearly two years having passed since her last match, Ronda Rousey doesn’t sound like she’s planning for a pro wrestling return.
“Pretty much, I’d say so,” Rousey told The Lapsed Fan podcast when asked if wrestling is in her rearview mirror. “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.
“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 [Baszler]. And that’s how I was able to do it at all.”
Rousey — a trailblazer and Hall of Famer in the UFC — made her WWE debut in 2018 and had two separate runs with the company before finishing up against Baszler at SummerSlam 2023. She did compete in three non-WWE matches shortly after that so she could work with her friend Marina Shafir.
At the start of 2025, Rousey welcomed her second daughter into the world with husband Travis Browne. Rousey has been pursuing writing as a career, including penning the script for an upcoming Netflix movie about her life. She also has a graphic novel — titled “Expecting the Unexpected” — set to be released this October.
Rousey told The Lapsed Fan that she views her WWE career as a sort of “sabbatical” where she learned things that she can apply to her current passions.
“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,” she said. “So I’m going to go f*cking be awesome and doing other things.
“I’ll take everything that I learned from pro wrestling and apply it elsewhere into my other passions, you know, in comics and fight choreography and in film and screenwriting and all of these things. If anything, it was like I was doing like a sabbatical. 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.”
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.