Ronda Rousey was victorious at WWE Survivor Series, successfully defending her WWE SmackDown Women's Championship against Shotzi.
The match came under criticism from fans for being sloppy in spots, specifically an apron DDT where Shotzi did a springboard from the inside and to the outside, hitting a DDT on the apron in the process. The spot didn't go as planned and Rousey took to her gaming stream to explain what happened.
"Let me explain what happened," she began. "I actually pitched that spot because I love that she does that. We couldn't practice in my ring because the ropes are too loose. We couldn't practice it when we got to the arena because there are these big cages. I've taken DDTs before, but I've never helped anybody over to the floor, so they were like, 'Okay, you have to have your hand here on her leg, the other hand on her hip, and you're going to guide her over.' Everyone was so focused on 'guide her over, guide her to the floor,' that it was literally all that was on my mind when it happened. When she went over it was like, 'guide her.' When she was down, I was like, 'Oh fuck. Ahhh, just go to where you're supposed to go.' I fucked it up because I was so concerned with keeping somebody safe and a lot of time, when you see me do something for the first time, it's the first time I ever did it. I was really concerned with keeping Shotzi safe and I made it look bad. You know what, sorry. Apparently, I deserve to be fired or burned. It reminds me of Monty Python, 'BURN HER!' There weren't calls to fire anybody when Madcap Moss and Big E were spiked on their heads. 'BURN HER ANYWAY!' I'm so sorry that I was so concerned with keeping someone safe that I made the bump look bad."
Rousey continued, explaining why she was bummed out and how she felt she let Shotzi down.
"What really bummed me out was, my favorite thing in the match was turning around a hostile crowd. We're in Boston, of course they're hostile because they're angry at the fact that they live there. Right when we got them turned around with the 'holy shit' and the crossbody into the fans, 'Fuck yeah, we're turning it around, we got all the awesome shit coming up.' Then, Shotzi rolls me in the ring, and they're like, 'Get out of there. Plan B, get out of there, we're out of time. We gotta go.' 'What?' She was going up and I had to run up and throw her down and throw her into the armbar and get out of there because that's what they were telling me on the mics because I guess the match before us went over by six minutes and they were concerned about going over on time. The match after us was a three-way, so they wouldn't be able to communicate with each other to make the match shorter and the match after that was WarGames and they couldn't cut that out. It was the only place they could get that time back. I was bummed though because we worked on that match for two weeks and we were really excited about it. I felt like I really failed Shotzi. I really wanted to showcase her shit and make all of her shit look great and show everyone how great she is. That's one of the main reasons I wanted to comeback for this run, to showcase the new talent. Show everyone how great Liv (Morgan) is, Shotzi is, Raquel (Rodriguez), and Shayna (Baszler) and showcase all these women that haven't been getting the attention that I think they deserve. That wasn't the match, that was like the beginning of the match and I'm bummed we're getting judged from what not really we put together," she said.
AJ Styles vs. Finn Balor was the bout before the WWE SmackDown Women's Title bout.
"I've never heard everybody so stressed about time as I was leading up to that pay-per-view," she said. "We literally only had eight minutes to do everything. When we hit eight minutes, 'alright, you gotta go,' I'm not gonna argue. They pay me to show up and do what they say to do. I'm bummed though. I feel like I failed Shotzi. Sorry. I'll do better. I'll make it up to her. I'll let her beat my ass."
Rousey reiterated that she thought it was funny that there were calls to fire her on social media when she was just trying to keep someone safe.
As previously reported, Brian Kendrick, at the request of Rousey, and Jason Jordan were the producers for the bout.
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