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In the late-summer of 2022, Paul “Triple H” Levesque stepped into the role of WWE Chief Content Officer, which gave him the authority to oversee WWE’s creative department. The following January, however, Vince McMahon returned to WWE as the Executive Chairman and once again became hands-on with WWE’s ideas and storylines, even while remote. A first-hand witness to McMahon’s creative dominance was former WWE Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey, who last wrestled for WWE in August 2023, two months before Levesque was given full creative control by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel.
“I didn’t get any of the Triple H era. I just got the death throes of Vince McMahon clinging to power, Rousey told “The Lapsed Fan.” “Just an absolute s*** show. There was no collaboration. It was basically like you would spend so much time and effort thinking about the story and how you can make it better, and they wouldn’t talk to you at all. They would spend like five minutes thinking about it the night before and then throw you a version of it that was complete s*** show.
“It wasn’t a collaboration. It was like a negotiation to try and get it to not suck as much as possible,” she continued. “Then you go out there and it’s like the final iteration of you trying to be like, can this be changed? How can I make this not absolutely f***ing suck? Then you go out there and you do something that you have not even been able to practice and you don’t even really believe in, and then that’s what’s coming across.”
According to Rousey, McMahon took good care of the story surrounding The Bloodline, largely due to its on-screen and backstage involvement with Paul Heyman, whom she described as a “Vince McMahon whisperer.” Conversely, Rousey saw many of the other storylines and matches appear lackluster or repetitive.
Rousey Believes Some Of Her Matches Could Have Been Great, Had It Not Been For Late Notices
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Despite her frustrations with the storyline changes and late notices, Rousey admits that McMahon’s creative regime did have some legitimate potential for genius, such as with her “I Quit” Match against Charlotte Flair at WWE WrestleMania Backlash in 2022.
“There are some days that we’d be able to hammer through something good and somehow be able to pull it off with no time to rehearse it,” Rousey said. “Like me and Charlotte’s I Quit Match, we didn’t have the match agreed upon what it was until 30 minutes before. I had 30 minutes to memorize it without even being able to be out there to practice it … It could have been great. It was good, but imagine what we could have done with my WWE debut where we had six weeks to put it together with the best minds in the business. We had it figured out 100% like two weeks before. Then we had two weeks to rehearse it and it shows. It was f***ing brilliant.”
Another memorable match in Rousey’s in-ring career came at WWE WrestleMania 35, when she, Flair, and Becky Lynch competed in the first ever all-women’s main event on WWE’s grandest stage. While certainly a milestone, Rousey believes that its quality pales in comparison to her debut match, which she, Kurt Angle, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon spent weeks preparing for beforehand.
“When we main-evented WrestleMania, it was some s*** that we threw together the night before. We were still trying to figure it out the day of, and it shows then,” Rousey said.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “The Lapsed Fan” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
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