Becky Lynch: Ronda Rousey Was A Star And Should Have Been Handled Differently, She Couldn’t Wrestle

Becky Lynch comments on Ronda Rousey’s time in WWE. 

Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey seemed destined to clash in a singles bout during Ronda’s time in WWE, but it never came to fruition and they only met in a triple threat match that also featured Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 35. 

Much like Lynch, Rousey has an autobiography due out, and she was critical about various things during her time in WWE, especially her second run, which didn’t 100% connect with the fans. 

Appearing on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Becky was asked about Ronda’s negative comments. 

“No, I’m not surprised [by Ronda’s negativity]… Look, I have a very different view and a very different experience of WWE, but I always wanted to do this. This is what I always wanted to do. I love this. Is it perfect? No. Nothing is. I’ve worked in little delis that you’re like, ‘How does this place operate?’ The size of WWE and the amount of talent and people that go into making it go live on TV for five hours a week when you’re just talking about Raw and SmackDown. Then you’ve got pay-per-views. Then you’ve got NXT. There’s so many people that go behind that, so you’re going to be dealing with a lot of people. So you’re going to have some negative experiences, but this is my dream. I’ve always wanted it to be good. I’ve always looked at myself, how can I be better? How can I make the division better? I’ve always worked to make it better,” he said.

Becky continued, “Stuff like the creative, no, it’s not always great. There’s been a history of it not making sense to me but nobody’s purposely going, ‘How do we make Becky Lynch look awful?’ They have so much going on. There’s so much going on. The fact that we pull everything off the way that we do and even at a time when, notoriously, the shows were getting Rewritten as we were going live on TV and we still got them done. We still went out there, we still hit our times, and we still made the show work. No, it was not always great, but a lot of it was, ‘We’re all doing the best we can.’ Nobody wants to go out there and do bad work, or make anybody look bad. I don’t think anybody is like, ‘How do I make this person look bad?’ Unless they’re supposed to be a heel and in terms of, you’re only trying to make them look bad, but they’re all like, if we do good, the company does good. So I don’t think anybody is trying to make anybody fail. I suppose that’s my point. Nobody’s trying to make anybody fail and I think when you love this, you look to try and make it better.”

Rousey joined WWE on a full-time basis at Royal Rumble 2018 after becoming on of the top stars in MMA history, but suffering back-to-back KO losses. Her first match took place at WrestleMania 34 when she teamed with Kurt Angle to face Stephanie McMahon & Triple H.

“She was coming from a different industry. She was a star and she should have been handled differently in terms of, I think she had a great first outing that everybody thought, ‘Oh, she can wrestle.’ I mean this with respect, but she couldn’t wrestle. What do we do isn’t something that you can just have one good match and then, ‘Okay, yeah. I’m off to the races.’ It’s a craft and you have to learn your craft. You have to be diligent about learning your craft, but everybody treated Ronda like she already knew it because when she first came in, she was good in that first bout, but she was also working with Kurt Angle, she was working with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, it was a well-rehearsed match because everybody wanted her to succeed.

“Then, it was like, ‘Okay, she can do this. Off to the races.’ That was mishandling her because she was a star in her own right and she had done so much for MMA and, in terms of that and booking, that wasn’t done well, but my experience coming from nobody thinking that I was going to be worth anything and making myself very valuable with the company and very valuable to wrestling in general, because I loved it and I sought out to do it. She came in and I think she found a place that she enjoyed, that she liked, but she never sought out to do it from a young age. I think that changes the experience that you have when you go into a place.”

Lynch previously said that people in WWE thought a match between her and Rousey was evergreen, but learned that it wasn’t. 

Fans can find Rousey’s comments on her time in WWE by clicking here. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.