Ronda Rousey has held nothing back when letting her feelings be known about some of the top executives in WWE.
Rousey made her debut for the company at the 2018 Royal Rumble following an angle involving The Rock, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 31. Competing in her first match at WrestleMania, Rousey would go on to win the Raw Women’s Championship and then lose it at WrestleMania 35, taking time away after the loss to have her first child.
Rousey would later return at the 2022 Royal Rumble and would achieve further championship success before her final match at SummerSlam 2023, where the former Women’s Champion lost to long-time friend Shayna Baszler.
Being a part of the company for a number of years, Rousey worked closely with some of the top names both in the ring and behind the scenes. In her forthcoming memoir Our Fight, Rousey has laid into Vince McMahon and a number of his “cronies.”
Excerpts from the book have been published by Inside The Ropes. Discussing Vince McMahon, Rousey compares him to the evil overlord from the Star Wars franchise and sees little disconnect between the onscreen character and what McMahon was like in real life:
“NXT was founded by and under the control of Triple H, real name Paul Levesque. In addition to being my in-ring WrestleMania nemesis, he is arguably one of the best professional wrestlers in history and one of the better people on the business side. He is married to Stephanie McMahon, who is the daughter of WWE’s Emperor Palpatine, Vince McMahon. Vince took over the company from his father in the early 1980s and spent the better part of forty years playing a real-world pro-wrestling version of Monopoly, buying up and absorbing smaller promotions until he basically owned them all.
It’s hard sometimes to know where the evil, unethical, slimeball character of Vince McMahon played out for the cameras ends and the actual questionably ethical, many times sued, and multiple times accused of sexual misconduct Vince McMahon begins. That blurred line between character and reality is a recurring theme within the WWE Universe.”
An additional quote also compared McMahon to that of the laws of Saudi Arabia:
“[Pay-per-views are] held in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, as well as now twice a year in Saudi Arabia, a nation that restricts the rights of women in a way that I’m certain Vince McMahon wishes he could.”
A follow-up article was published by Inside The Ropes which saw John Laurinaitis be targeted by Rousey, calling out Laurinaitis and his practises when he took over NXT in 2021 when Triple H was absent due to suffering a cardiac event:
“As NXT grew and it became apparent that there was the potential to expand and profit from it, suddenly it became attractive to Vince. In fall of 2019, WWE launched a weekly NXT show—slated to go head-to-head on-air with AEW. Now, NXT was on the up-and-up, but so too was AEW. Then Triple H almost died, suffering from heart failure and requiring surgery. He stepped away to deal with his health, and in his absence, Vince’s cronies saw an opportunity.
NXT was losing the ratings battle to AEW, they whispered to Vince. Changes needed to be made. Which is how John Laurinaitis, a former wrestler turned WWE executive and all-around dirtbag, ended up running NXT. Laurinaitis had made a name for himself as an average but by no means outstanding wrestler before he moved into playing an in-ring authority figure type and then a producer.”
“He looked and acted like an entitled sixty-year-old former frat boy. Tall, blondish, and with a cleft chin, he always appeared to be scowling, even when he smiled. His raspy voice earned him the nickname Johnny Laryngitis, which was one of the nicer things people called him. Whereas Triple H looked for talent and potential in NXT prospects, it appeared John Laurinaitis looked for f*ckability.
He further purged the NXT roster, firing it seemed like everyone over twenty-five and turning recruiting attention away from the indie circuits in favor of blonde sorority-types from places like the Universities of Florida and Tennessee. Putting the blame for the decline on Laurinaitis—which Vince would basically try to do a few months later—would be easy but Laurinaitis was only a symptom of what was wrong within WWE.”
In January 2024, Vince McMahon was accused of sex trafficking and sexual assault by former WWE employee Janel Grant. John Laurinaitis, who was also explicitly named in the lawsuit and was allegedly a part of the disturbing accusations, claimed he was a victim. The lawsuit itself highlighted a toxic culture that spread beyond the accusations directed at McMahon and Laurinaitis.
“There Were So Many Public Accusations”: Ronda Rousey On WWE
When discussing the previous treatment of women in WWE, Rousey called out the “casting couch culture” of the company and heavily criticised the way performers were treated in previous eras:
“WWE bills itself as a sports entertainment organization, and just like in the mainstream entertainment industry, there was, by all accounts, a casting couch culture where men backstage in powerful positions pressured female talent for sexual favors in return for airtime. There were so many public accusations and scandals it’s hard to keep track, and more that I’m sure the WWE managed to sweep under the ring.
Women weren’t just being demeaned backstage, but center stage. Up until 2007, “Bra & Panties Matches,” where female wrestlers won the match by stripping their opponent down to her underwear, were an actual f*cking thing. Even after that gimmick was retired by WWE executives—I’m sure very reluctantly and with a lot of lamenting about political correctness—it was still clear that the organization placed more value on a woman’s physical appearance than her physical ability.
The Divas Era with its pink rhinestone butterfly title belt dawned around the same time. Women, while now portrayed as wrestlers, were still expected to look a certain way—think lots of makeup, little clothing, and huge boobs. It would take almost another decade, years after I proved women could be a huge combat sports attraction, before women truly started to get time in the squared circle (what diehards call a pro wrestling ring).
And it was only after WWE was basically armbarred into it, following a global social media backlash to #givedivasachance after Divas were given a total of thirty seconds— less time than it takes most people to read this paragraph—for a nationally televised tag match.
Four women were given less time to collectively wrestle than every single man on the roster got for his intro music alone. Presented this information as a person outside of the wrestling world you might draw the conclusion that there is a troubling foundational sexist, patriarchal culture within the WWE. You would be right. I have nothing but respect for the female wrestlers who paved the way for women wrestlers today. And nothing but disgust for the amount of sexist, degrading bullsh*t they were put through.”
In a media interview to promote the book, Ronda Rousey stated that she had no intentions of going back to the “sh*t” show that is WWE.
Our Fight will be released on April 4th and can be pre-ordered here.
Featured image: WWE
