If you ask Eric Bischoff, Ronda Rousey has no reason to stick around WWE.
The former WCW Executive Vice President and WWE performer spoke on his “83 Weeks” podcast about why he thinks there is no reason for Rousey to remain in WWE following her submission loss to Shayna Baszler at this past Saturday night’s WWE SummerSlam 2023 premium live event at Ford Field in Detroit, MI.
“I agree—nothing against Ronda. I don’t know her personally, but eh, it’s been ever since she got there, in my opinion, a lot of buildup and hype,” Bischoff said. “I mean, she’s obviously a big personality, very credentialed, and has done many great things. But I’ve never felt like Ronda wanted to be there. I felt like it was a great opportunity for Ronda, and I think Ronda wanted that opportunity, but from day one, I never felt like she wanted to be there. Well, here’s, I hope she’s done. I’ll talk about, for me my perspective. Once I watched Holly Holm ab destroy Ronda, and you saw the fear and weakness, and you saw it in her eyes.”
Bischoff continued, “When Ronda got kicked in the head and pounded, she went from being this incredibly cool, badass woman you saw. You could smell the fear in her eyes. That’s how intense it was. She lost her mystique for me at that moment. Maybe too many WWE fans, but that wasn’t a big deal, and she was coming over with that UFC persona. But that mystique stayed once you’ve been exposed as badly as Holly Holm exposed Ronda. That mystique left her in UFC, and she couldn’t bring that over. And that’s not the end of the world. If you can find yourself, if you can find yourself in WWE, if you can find a new character if you could almost allow the audience to forget that you got your ass embarrassingly handed to you and your last fight, you, you can get over that if you embrace what you’re doing. But to me, Ronda kept trying to continue a character that no longer existed because it was exposed, and she didn’t appear to be somebody that was having fun, having fun doing what she was doing. She was going through the motions of doing this, what she needed to do contractually to make as much money as she did. And she was very professional. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not taking anything away from her effort. But something was missing for me when Ronda came over to WWE and me. It was a lack of commitment.”
Check out the complete episode of the “83 Weeks” podcast featuring Eric Bischoff via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to WrestlingHeadlines.com for transcribing the above quotes.
