Ronda Rousey on Her Time with WWE, Frustrations Working with Vince McMahon, & Her Appearance at AEW Revolution 2026 and Her Love of AEW for Not Being PG Wrestling

Complex News held a recent interview with MMA fighter and former WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey. One of the topics discussed included Rousey’s thoughts about her wrestling career in WWE and how she felt she was portraying an impression of herself rather than being authentic.

“I felt like I was doing somebody else’s impression of myself. You can tell when I was allowed to write my own promos and when I wasn’t. I learned a lot from it and I really enjoyed my time in the ring. I didn’t really enjoy being under the death throes of Vince McMahon’s reign, but there were a lot of great experiences in there.” 

Rousey also gave her thoughts about her issues and frustrations working in WWE under Vince McMahon’s leadership.

“I mean the second run, Vince was just more far gone and more difficult to work with and there was a lot of inner turmoil going on in the company. It was kind of a sh*t show and nobody ever knew what was going on. And you would get to the arena and you would be made to do something that somebody threw in your lap that wasn’t, hadn’t thought about it until 15 minutes before. Everything was super last minute and not well thought out and there was no communication, no back and forth.

Any attempt to collaborate felt like we were trying to negotiate something as opposed to partnering together to make something great. And unfortunately I love being out there in the ring and doing it, but the process was just like cluster f*ck, sh*t show that it was so much more anxiety than it was worth. I just look back at it and I just remember the anxiety of not knowing what was going on and then at the last minute, maybe we’d be able to pull it out of our a** and have a good night and maybe not. I was definitely team Triple H to get up to take it over. Yeah. So, I’ve heard it’s been much better since he’s taken things over, but unfortunately I didn’t get to experience it.”

Rousey also gave her thoughts about her appearance at this past March’s AEW Revolution 2026 event and how she loves that AEW is not PG for its wrestling compared to WWE.

“I mean, it didn’t hurt. It would be a little bit, like, a little, you know, catty with it. But it just was so, like, serendipitous that Marina Shafir is my best friend. We grew up doing judo together when we were, like, little kids, and I asked her, I’m like, ‘hey, is AEW going to be in town while I’m promoting this fight? Because I’d love to do, like, a run-in or something and help you out.’ So it was just, you know, really serendipitous that it all happened to work out like that, and it was her first ever pay-per-view match, and I’m really glad that I got to be there for that, and one thing I really love about AEW is that it’s not PG like WWE. So I can walk in there and flick everybody off and walk out and laugh with my best friend and have a great time, and I didn’t feel as edited as before, and so it was- yeah it was a good time.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com