Though she's almost been out of WWE for a full year now, Ronda Rousey remains an incredible topic of conversation among members of the promotion and their fans, with plenty of performers, most notably Becky Lynch, weighing in on her time in the promotion and placing it in a negative light.
While some have questioned Rousey's commitment to the promotion, or how much she actually wanted to be there, one performer who gave the “Baddest Woman on the Planet” a glowing endorsem*nt was Alicia Fox, the former WWE Divas Champion who has since gone out on her own on the indies under the Vix Crow moniker.
“Yeah, it was good. Professional, always. I mean, like, that's the thing. We had [Fit Finlay], or we had someone like, I think [TJ Wilson] was around. We always have all the girls to make it look right. That's the best thing about that bond. I love in the creative process of that, how you can work out a flow with people I think in that time, it was nice to be able to merge, like from the Divas eras and the ones that established us to be able to have the Maria Menounos and Ronda Rouseys,” Alicia Fox told MuscleManMalcolm via Fightful.
“That was nice to experience with each other. So, I don't know if the match was not good, or if it were great. What I love is I've had memories with these women and taking pictures with the girls, you know, like, we really did have a life of that on the road. So that's really important, too… So I was willing to figure out how we were going to make this work.”
Could Fox's experience be more representative of what Rousey was actually like to work with than Lynch's? Sure. Could Fox's experience be less representative of what Rousey was actually like to work with than Lynch's? That's possible too. Either way, assuming Rousey doesn't return to WWE, which would be wild at this point, it's safe to say her legend in the promotion will only continue to grow.
Ronda Rousey reveals why she doesn't return to UFC as a spectator.
Speaking of Ronda Rousey's contentious relationship with her former employers, the “Baddest Woman on the Planet” stopped by High Performance to discuss her relationship with UFC and the MMA journalists who chronicled her career. Asked why she asserted that media members turned on her after taking two straight losses at the end of her career, Rousey noted that that's more of a question for the media, as they're the ones who asserted that she wasn't giving it her all, not her.
“Ask the MMA media (why what I gave wasn't enough) – they're the ones saying it … that I was a fraud and I was hype and I was exposed and I was never anything and just lucky and all of these things, that I was ungracious or I was a loser, or every other thing that I just assume at this point because I don't take the time to read it,” Ronda Rousey explained on High Performance via MMA Junkie.
“Everything that could be said that was negative was said, and I feel really vilified by MMA media at this point and not really welcome back, which is why I haven't gone to a UFC fight since (I left). I'm pretty sure if I walked into the arena, I'd be booed. That's how it feels.”
Asked what it's like to be so thoroughly hated, Rousey turned the question around, noting that she can't control how others feel but she left UFC at the right time for her, even if others don't agree.
“I live it. I guess I wish it didn't (bother me). I gave them everything I had, and it wasn't enough,” Rousey explained. “But that's why a lot of people don't give everything that they have, because they don't want to face it if it wasn't enough. I realize it was enough for me, but not enough for people on the outside. But it really wasn't for them.”
On one hand, Rousey is doing a ton of work to make her new book seem as interesting as possible, taking part in interview after interview that is somehow juicier than the last, but one also has to wonder if she is simply burning too many bridges in the pursuit of optimizing her literary footprint. Oh well, if Rousey can't return to WWE or UFC, there's always a tag team with Marina Sharif in Ring of Honor, right?
