The end of Ronda Rousey‘s first WWE run might have caused her to lose her smile, but now “The Baddest Woman on the Planet” is back, she’s determined to improve on certain aspects of her on-screen character.
In a video she posted on her YouTube page, the former RAW Women’s Champion looked back on her return to the company. She recalled how she was getting “booed out of the stadium” and feeling frustrated because she couldn’t be true to herself as a babyface who had to deal with these reactions. Once she came back to the company at WWE Royal Rumble, Rousey braced for the worst and expected fans to treat her the same way they did in 2019. She especially believed that the audience would be hostile at WWE RAW, when she confronted Becky Lynch.
But as it turned out, the crowd was mostly receptive to the former champion. Rousey noted that there were a few exceptions, but she did her best to ignore them. She then recalled her subsequent meeting with Vince McMahon himself, who told her to smile more. When she pointed out that she was getting booed profusely at the end of her last run, the WWE Chairman gave her a valuable lesson — the show is about the fans, not the performers.
“…I got through it, and I came out,” said Rousey. “And Heyman was like you did great, but I’m gonna tell you, he’s gonna tell you one thing, he’s gonna tell you to smile. I’m like okay. So I went and talked to Vince. He was like, ‘That was fantastic. Just you need to smile.’ And I was telling him, they were booing me on the way out of every stadium. And he’s like, ‘Yeah but they’ve forgiven you for that.’ I’m like, ‘Well I haven’t forgiven them.’ And he goes, ‘But it’s not about you, it’s about them.'”
With this in mind, Rousey shifted gears and focused on letting the crowd “be a part of” her promos and her matches, starting with her appearance on the following episode of WWE SmackDown.
“I was forgetting that this is a show about entertaining them,” said Rousey. “So I’m like okay, I felt like I got the jitters out. I got my first performance out of the way, I got my first promo out of the way, and so going into SmackDown next Friday, I’m like okay I’m not going to come out all guarded and defensive. I’m just gonna go out and actually feel the crowd and let them be a part of it.”
Rousey continues to shine as a babyface on the blue brand, and she’ll face Sonya Deville in a singles bout on the March 4 episode of WWE SmackDown.
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