Hot damn.
If you watched her career in mixed martial arts, you know Ronda Rousey became the star she was because she talked an awful lot of shit and then went out and backed it up by absolutely destroying everyone she was matched up against. She did this until she got the reverse and while it may have humbled her (we’ll never really know how she feels, because she won’t talk about it in any kind of depth), the person underneath remains the same.
That’s not the Rousey we know in pro wrestling, because we never got to see all that. She came in with a big ass grin on her face, just happy to be accepted, happy to be cheered, happy to feel loved. That rough edge she had in MMA seemed to be gone.
The problem, of course, is that rough edge is what made her worth watching. It’s what made her interesting. That’s been missing since she came to WWE.
Until this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
That’s what I’m talking about.
Those shots on Becky Lynch look stiff, and she seems legitimately pissed off to the point that you can really believe she might just break everyone in that ring. The kicker is you know she’s capable of such a thing.
And that is what we’ve been waiting for, and not just because Ronda Rousey, World’s Most Dangerous Killer is a much more interesting character and far more true to reality than Ronda Rousey, Just Happy To Be Here but because it will mean that much more when Becky Lynch wins the title from her. Or Charlotte Flair, even.
The story is a convoluted, overbooked mess at this point but we can take issue with that another day. For now, let’s just celebrate the fact that we finally got the Ronda Rousey we’ve always needed.