Shayna Baszler and Ronda Rousey are noted friends dating back to their days in the UFC together.
Baszler and Rousey are part of the MMA Four Horsewomen and their friendship has been referenced on WWE TV with Ronda being present for Baszler's bouts in NXT before officially joining WWE. Now, both women are part of WWE SmackDown.
Speaking to Ryan Satin on Out of Character, Baszler explained that Ronda is the type of person who would give her the shirt off her back and explained why criticism of Ronda bothers her.
"Here's the thing, I know Ronda enough to know that she does not spend her time on social media. Anytime she comments is because someone has said, 'Hey, Ronda, you should comment on this,' which isn't often because she'll still be like, 'Why? Who cares?' I get frustrated when, it's a little more selfish than that, I get frustrated if I ever were to speak out. If someone were to say something like, 'Name the top three women's fighters of all time.' If I put Ronda in that list, immediately, they're like, 'Nope, she got exposed.' Even now, it's bothering me in a hypothetical. Just because she lost and you didn't like her personality, you're letting it cloud the fact that she changed women's fighting. There would not be women in the UFC, at least not for a while, if it wasn't for her. To deny that she did great things, to discredit her just because she had a loss and you didn't like her personality, I feel like if she had lost and then came on a podcast and been like, 'I lost,' and been super humble and not Ronda, not herself, people would say she's the greatest ever, but because she lost and took it to heart and hated it, people hate her, so they have to discredit everything about it. That's annoying to me. I can say that I might not enjoy that Amanda Nunes beat Ronda and talked smack about her after, but I can say that Amanda Nunes is one of the best women's fighters of all-time. I can do that. It bothers me that regular fans can't do that," she said.
Baszler went on to praise Ronda for being the one who brought women's fighting to the UFC.
Rousey started her MMA career with a 12-0 record, winning the Strikeforce/UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship and defending it six times before suffering back-to-back losses to Holly Holm and Nunes. She is the reigning WWE SmackDown Women's Champion and set to defend her title against Baszler's tag team partner Natalya at WWE Money in the Bank.
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