Ronda Rousey discusses Vince McMahon's advice to her about staying babyface.
Ronda Rousey was away from WWE for three years after losing in the main event of WrestleMania 35. When she left, she was a heel but upon returning, she was once again a babyface.
In a new video on her YouTube channel, Ronda Rousey discussed the reaction she received at the end of her WWE run making her want to leave for a little while and go home.
"I walked out of the stadium WrestleMania I mean, my knuckle was shattered. So I couldn't even remember I kept trying to put my hand on my hip, I couldn't even turn my hand and put it on my hip," Ronda began. "Everyone was booing me out of the stadium. I was just like, 'Man, fuck these people, I can't wait to go home."
Ronda also spoke about her run as a babyface the first time she was in WWE feeling like it was the most uncomfortable she had ever been because she knew that the fans were not fully behind her and she wanted to be able to be a heel until then how she felt.
"When I left WWE, I had been getting booed out of the stadium, like, every day for months. I think one of the most uncomfortable and disingenuous I've ever felt was when I had to be a babyface and the crowd was being hostile towards me. I couldn't just tell them exactly what I felt," she continued. "I did not come back. I was stuck between like me poke around. Do I stay true to myself until these people go out themselves or do I, you know, respect Vince, who has done so much for me, and not go against what he wants me to do? So when I finally got to turn heel, I loved it because I felt like it kind of finally got to be myself."
"I really missed wrestling I did and I wanted to come back," she continued. "I knew I was coming back, or I thought I did to the animosity that I left. So I came out feeling super defensive from the beginning. At the Rumble, it wasn't like that. But I just assumed the reaction was from the surprise. So coming out to Raw and Becky was gonna be there. I was like, 'Okay, this is when they're gonna troll on me the most. This is when they're going to try and like chant 'Becky' every single time I open my mouth. This is the time they're going to start like screaming the most hurtful things they can.' I came out anticipating that, and everything went fine. Of course, there was like those three or four guys in the like on the floor that were just like screaming as I was talking and I really just had to concentrate to like, block them out."
Ronda Rousey then explained the conversation that she has with Vince McMahon concerning that she continues to smile and tell her that it's not about her grudge with the fans, it's about entertaining them.
"I got through it and I came out and Heyman was like, 'You did great, but I'm gonna tell you, he's gonna tell you one thing, to smile.' I'm like, okay, so I go talk to Vince [and] he was like, 'That was fantastic. Just smile.' Now I was telling him like, you know, 'They were booing me on the way out of every stadium. 'He's like, Yeah, but they've forgiven you for that.' I'm like, 'Well, I haven't forgiven them,' and he goes, 'But it's not about you. It's about them.' It was like such a good point that I'd been thinking about myself and how it relates to myself, and I was forgetting that this is a show about entertaining them," she concluded.
Ronda Rousey will compete in her first singles main event at WrestleMania against Charlotte Flair on Saturday, April 2. Learn more here.
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