Former WWE Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey has indicated that she is “pretty much” retired from professional wrestling. In a new interview, Rousey shared her frustration with her two runs in WWE, citing the company’s failure to ever book the long-teased Four Horsewomen storyline as a primary reason for her departure.
Speaking on The Lapsed Fan podcast, Rousey was asked if her wrestling career is now in her “rearview mirror.” “Pretty much, I’d say so,” she responded. She explained that her main motivation for getting into WWE was to work with her real-life friends and fellow MMA Four Horsewomen, Shayna Baszler, Marina Shafir, and Jessamyn Duke, a storyline that was consistently teased but never fully realized.
“I got into WWE because I wanted to be able to wrestle with my girls, you know, the Four Horsewomen and be able to wrestle with my friends. And they kind of dangled that carrot for my whole run and never let it happen,” Rousey said. “And then the second run, they kept dangling it. And then by the end, I was like, I’m f*cking leaving unless I can wrestle with Shayna [Baszler]. And that’s how I was able to do it at all.” Her final match in WWE was a loss to Baszler at SummerSlam 2023.
Rousey was blunt in while talking about the creative process in WWE, stating that she felt the company was holding her back from her full potential. “That’s what made me have to step away, because it got to the point where I’m just like, they’re never going to allow me to make it as good as it can be, and, like, meeting them halfway in this range of mediocrity is like crushing my soul. So I can’t continue to do that,” she said. “So I’m going to go f*cking be awesome and doing other things.”
She now views her time in wrestling as a “sabbatical,” where she learned skills that she can apply to her other passions, such as screenwriting and comic books. “I’ll take everything that I learned from pro wrestling and apply it elsewhere into my other passions… If anything, it was like I was doing like a sabbatical,” she explained. “When you go off and you study something for years and come back and utilize what you learned, that was my wrestling sabbatical. I will take everything that I learned from that and apply it to all the other spaces that are bringing me joy.”
Since her WWE departure, Rousey has been focused on her family and her writing career. She and her husband, Travis Browne, welcomed their second daughter in early 2025. She has also penned the script for an upcoming Netflix movie about her life and has a graphic novel, titled “Expecting the Unexpected,” set for release this October. While she did compete in three non-WWE matches after her SummerSlam bout to work with her friend Marina Shafir, it appears her time as a professional wrestler has come to an end.
The full interview with Ronda Rousey can be heard on the latest episode of The Lapsed Fan podcast.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit The Lapsed Fan with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
