Forum Files #17: What to do with Ronda Rousey (Get on the Main Page!)

[klunderbunker]

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Here’s the latest WZ Forum Files topic:

What do to with Ronda Rousey?

Last night at the 2018 Royal Rumble, Ronda Rousey showed up as a surprise to end the show. She stared down Charlotte, Asuka, Alexa Bliss and Stephanie McMahon but didn’t say anything or attack anyone. At the same time though, she did point at the Wrestlemania sign, meaning her in-ring debut is likely to come on the grand stage in New Orleans.

So what should WWE do with her? Who should she face and how should she be booked? How would you put together her WWE career going into and coming out of New Orleans? Assume she’s going to be sticking around for years and is passable in the ring. Let us know what you think and see if your answer is as dominant as Rousey was in the UFC.

 

[Finsta]

I think she should join the Heyman stable.. Let him be the mouth piece as he has been for Brock.
I think it'd be crazy for the WWE to let Ronda try and go completely solo.

 

[klunderbunker]

I think she should join the Heyman stable.. Let him be the mouth piece as he has been for Brock.
I think it'd be crazy for the WWE to let Ronda try and go completely solo.

I'm not sure on this. Rousey is one of the best talkers MMA has ever seen and if they don't script her, she'll be fine. Heyman doesn't have the best track record either as his only real success outside of Lesnar has been with Punk.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

She clearly needs to save 205 Live. Made you think, didn't I?

Never mind. It's hard to know what they should do with her when we don't know what she wants to do and what she can do. Let's just assume that she really can wrestle, talk, and has a reach beyond pro wrestling and combat sports and is willing to do what I want as WWE.

Its probably too late since she spent all that time pointing but I would hold back with her. Give her an enforcer or referee role in Asuka's title match at Mania. In the meantime keep up the Stephanie stuff where the fans continue to buy in to her taking too much credit for the success of the women.

After Mania have Rousey confront Stephanie about her attitude. Stephanie can then threaten Rousey about why she hasn't competed in the ring. Rousey then uses her stroke to set up an all women's PPV that replaces one of the smaller B level PPVs. She can face Asuka or Charlotte or even Nia. Make it cross brand. Do a Sasha/Bayley match for old times sake. Throw in a couple other personal feuds and maybe a gimmick match or two. Bring back slme of those women that still looked really good at the Royal Rumble. Maybe it is time to introduce a women's tag title as well if they really want to fill out the show.

But the point is Rousey wrestling being the main draw here. I don't think they really need her to fight her first fight at Mania. Mania sells itself and a new viewer may get lost in the other six hours of Mania to ever get absorbed in to the product while waiting and wondering when Rousey is going to go on. She needs to clearly be front and center for her to get all the attention that she can get. An all women's PPV sets them apart from most other sports and especially MMA. I think it can make them a good chunk of money and a lot of goodwill.

 

[Rayne]

Ronda Rousey is a hell of a fighter- but at this point in time, she's going to be incredibly green in the ring. You don't train in your off-time for a year or so and become WWE ready. On the other hand, now that they've announced Ronda and brought her to the ring, they have to do something with her while she gets ring-ready.

So for now, they'll have to put Ronda in roles in which her inexperience in the ring won't show, and you've got a few options there. One would be to reprise her winning streak in the UFC and have her squash top competition in seconds. Put Asuka on Smackdown, keeping her undefeated. Have Ronda appear every few months on the RAW brand and have her run over the Sasha/Bliss/Nia gamut. Eventually, you've got Asuka vs. Ronda in a clash of the undefeated- Wrestlemania next year looks great for that- and even if Ronda is still green in the ring next year, Asuka is the kind of dance partner who could hide that.

You could also hide Ronda in guest referee and GM roles until she's ready, but I think this route leads to softening the impact she'll have. Ronda won't be ready to work a twenty minute match at WWE quality anytime soon, but at the same time, you can only hold off so long until an excited "FINALLY!" becomes an exasperated "well, finally".

What you could end up doing is using Ronda in a guest role at Wrestlemania, having her disappear to the Performance Center for a few months, then bring her in for SummerSlam for a quick squash and dovetail that into the "Ronda's quick win streak" scenario. What they can't do, and what I think they're smart enough to avoid, is either putting her in a twenty-minute botch fest right away, or have her come in to give a Charlotte or Asuka an immediate rub (a la Lesnar's re-debut).

 

[CyberPunk]

It remains to be seen how Rousey can handle a wrestling match. We all know her drawing abilities. Even after her losses in UFC, she is a big draw and would pull in numbers many female competitors in WWE can only dream of. However, unless we know what she can do in the ring, it'll be very difficult to think of a proper match for Rousey. I think her judo background will help her tremendously in understanding the nuances of pro-wrestling, and because she's a natural athlete, she'll pick up on wrestling moves faster than most workers. The only challenge for her would be protecting her opposition. If she becomes any good in the ring, she's going to be front and center of not only the women's division, but WWE roster in general in the long run.

Having said all this, she's someone WWE would want to cash in this very moment. She's going to be over, so starting her with some basic tag matches or short squashes would be a great idea. The current reports are a tag match with Rousey tagging with the Rock against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. As a wrestling fan, this match does nothing for me. As a spectacle though, this is a main event worthy match. Personally, I'd be much more inclined to a match between Asuka and Rousey. Asuka's strong style coupled with Rousey's judo background can make for a hard-hitting match. Charlotte is another candidate who could pull a good match out of Rousey. How all this will go depends on how far Rousey has come in with her time spent in the Performance Center. Her debut match will be a big one and I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Personally, i feel like they should have her in a Brock Lesnar type role for the women'S division. She doesn't need to be on every shows and every PPV. Make her a special attraction for the big shows because that's what she is. If you have her wrestled a full schedule, she will lose everything that makes her sepcial and won't last as a draw.

 

[NxtBigThing]

I think the female division can be big if WWE uses Ronda Rousey correctly. She is the female version of Brock Lesnar and she needs to come in and be viewed that way. Once she joins the roster I'd have her come in and face Charlotte at Wrestle Mania (assuming Askuna challenges Alexa) and do a quick squash winning via arm bar. Have her start with a schedule that is similar but has more dates than Lesnar's. This gives her time to train and get better. I'd have her first few be squashes to give her time to train. When she is ready you can have the others pick up how to defend against the arm bar which will make Ronda able to wrestle. Once she starts having competitive matches and close to losing I'd bring in the 4 Horsewomen (or at least Baszler to start) and have Ronda hold the belt until at least next years Wrestle Mania when you can have the first ever Women's Main Event of Wrestle Mania being Undefeated Champions Askuna vs Rousey.

 

[Jericho91]

So what should WWE do with her? Who should she face and how should she be booked? How would you put together her WWE career going into and coming out of New Orleans? Assume she’s going to be sticking around for years and is passable in the ring. Let us know what you think and see if your answer is as dominant as Rousey was in the UFC.

She will be given the Goldberg treatment. Total domination in the women's division with an extremely long or (never-ending winning streak). Even if she does lose, it will never be a clean loss.

She will be the 2nd superstar in the women's division (After Chyna) to compete for (And actually win) the Intercontinental Title.

Going even beyond that ... She will be the first superstar in the women's division to become a Women's champion & Intercontinental champion simultaneously.

Her matches will never last longer than 5 minutes.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I don't mean to parrot what others have said already but it's true: it's difficult for us to know or thing what WWE "should" do with her because we have no idea as to her strengths and weaknesses, how good or bad she is and what she's good or bad at as far as being a pro wrestler is concerned. I've read that she goes to the PC late at night and trains, I've also read that she's been trained at various times by the likes of Natalya, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair so she's definitely been learning from some of the best female talent inside the ring.

The idea of her working a mixed tag match against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon doesn't appeal to me all that much. The primary reason is because....well..it just seems kinda underwhelming that Ronda Rousey, the woman who put women's MMA on the map, a legitimate badass loaded with natural charisma and sex appeal facing off against a couple of company executives, one of which is a middle aged mom who probably has less in-ring ability than we're worried Rousey herself has. Of course, the live crowd will eat up the notion of seeing Stephanie get "beaten up" by Rousey, and Triple H to some degree as well and that's more what Vince wants than anything else. Instead of seeing her in a real "fight" against someone like Charlotte or Asuka, it's extremely easy to picture that Vince wants something more along the lines of a spectacle, a spectacle that's very heavy on the "sports entertainment" side of things and very light on the wrestling side.

 

[klunderbunker]

Whatever they’re going to do, they need to do it carefully. Rousey isn’t something that comes along every day and there’s no reason to waste her by treating her like any given wrestler. She’s a proven star and someone who could be a special attraction. Don’t waste her in nothing matches on Raw but rather bring her along slowly to build herself up.

You can’t do the same thing she did in the UFC, at least not in her bigger matches, but doing something once in awhile would be fine. Let her look dominant at first to show that she can do it in WWE as well but then show that the top stars of the division are indeed a match for her.

Having Rousey wrestle like any other woman would completely miss the point, just like when HHH was having regular matches with Brock Lesnar and going toe to toe with him. Any villain could do that but Lesnar, just like Rousey here, isn’t like everyone else. The only thing that really matters with her is the presentation, as WWE could blow it in a heartbeat and that’s one of the worst things they could do.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

There's an element of "be careful what you wish for..." in Ronda's finally being part of the WWE and on a "full time" basis.

While at the start, that probably means she is "full-time" on training, if they start using her like Brock, sparingly then that can cause friction with the other women, who are just as important to making it work.

It's interesting that there have been some, seemingly worked but you never quite know negative tweets from Nia and an interview from Sasha that if legit can only bring heat on her. Indeed, it could be seen that Nia's walkout was linked to this too - if she heard from Dwayne it was on, then she might have asked herself "why bother?".

It's smart in a way because Ronda IS going to cause problems with all the women who got WWE to this point and each of them is going to want to put "their case" to be the one to face her in that first match. Stephanie having it in any way, even to hide limitations is a mistake. That first match needs to be the biggest womens match in WWE history.

I would do it like the Jericho/Angle/Benoit match - where BOTH Women's titles are on the line in successive falls. Your participants would be Charlotte, Asuka, Alexa and Ronda.

Have Asuka win a fall and Ronda win one, setting the arc for the next year that is leading to them facing off title for title (in the Mania main event) harsh perhaps on Carmella but then she can cash in on Ronda, lose but she lost to Ronda... so it won't kill her.

If Ronda has the SD belt, then it sets up matches with Natalya, Becky, Carmella and Naomi over the next year... if they move some folks around then those can change, but a run with Becky and Natalya, both of who are VERY experienced and have some training knowledge will only help Ronda learn. Carmella is green herself, but she's there to be fed to Ronda in reality... it's clear Asuka and Ronda are the dream ticket.

Nearer Mania, have her go into a one-on-one with Charlotte to get her ready for Asuka.

It's perhaps harshest on Alexa, who hasn't done much wrong but is now "out of the picture" realistically... if Ronda doesn't take her title, Asuka will... and she won't get it back from either.

They MUST avoid the mixed tag... be it Rocky or Braun or whoever, Trips and Steph will damage her rather than build her up and it'll do no favors for Strowman. R

Remember Ronda came off TWO big UFC losses, so she has to be booked like a beast out the gate, beating credible opponents... not Steph...and before you say "what if she pins Hunter..." no, just no.

 

[#hamler]

Rousey should be able to work whatever schedule she wants. If that means we see her at the big four pay-per-views then so be it. No matter how much her star has diminished over the last couple of years, she's a bigger commodity than anyone currently signed to a WWE contract. Given how much notoriety she brings in with her, the Women of the WWE should be begging to be squashed by Rousey. Once the Women superstars get on that level of popularity, then they can start walking around pointing at Wrestlemania signs without actually doing anything.

Rousey brings in eyes, not only for the Women but for the WWE as a brand. Hopefully they utilize her in a big match up. Given her little bit of training, she can likely be put in a singles match and do ok against someone like Asuka or Charlotte who are veterans at making their opponents look good. I'd much prefer they keep Asuka and Rousey away from one another for an entire year while building towards a mega showdown in the main event of Wrestlemania 35. If anything, let Rousey completely steamroll straight through Alexa Bliss at Wrestlemania to establish her dominance.

In all honesty, it really doesn't matter who she faces at Wrestlemania, her image belongs right next to Reigns and Lesnar on that ppv poster and any poster she wants until it's proven she isn't a draw. The WWE is rolling out the red carpet for Rousey and rightfully so. I just hope they don't screw this one up like they have so many in the past.