Former WWE Women’s World Champion Ronda Rousey has confirmed that she is not looking to make a return to WWE. In a new, candid interview with Raj Prashad of Yahoo! Sports, Rousey expressed 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.
The three-time WWE Women’s Champion last competed for the company at SummerSlam 2023, where she lost an “MMA Rules” match to her real-life friend, Shayna Baszler. While she made a few appearances for other promotions later that year to work with her friend Marina Shafir, she has been away from the ring ever since.
“I really have no reason to go back,” she said. “I wanted to do a run with the Four Horsewomen and I never got to do that. And now I feel like I’ve already accomplished everything that I wanted to in WWE and all that’s really left for me is to go there and have fun with my friends, and none of my friends are there anymore.”
The “Four Horsewomen” she is referring to are her own group of MMA pioneers, which includes Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke, and Marina Shafir. All three of them worked for WWE at various points, but none are currently with the company. Baszler was released in May and is now a free agent, while Shafir is a member of the Death Riders stable in AEW. Rousey has been complimentary of Shafir’s work in AEW, but she stated that a move to that promotion is not in the cards for her due to her family commitments.
Rousey was blunt in her assessment of the backstage environment in WWE during her time there, calling it an “anxiety-filled and chaotic s— show.” Her comments echo a previous interview where she stated that meeting WWE halfway in a “range of mediocrity” was “crushing my soul.”
With her wrestling career now officially behind her, Rousey is focused on her family and her writing career. She and her husband, Travis Browne, welcomed their second daughter in early 2025. Rousey has also written the script for an upcoming Netflix movie about her life and has a graphic novel, titled “Expecting the Unexpected,” set for release this October.
The full interview with Ronda Rousey, where she also discusses her transition to writing and her thoughts on the current state of women’s MMA, can be read on Yahoo! Sports.
