Add as a preferred source on Google Ronda Rousey revealed that her final WWE match was meant to be a provocative farewell, even though she knew part of the audience would not fully understand what she and Shayna Baszler were trying to do.
In a recent interview with ClutchPoints, Rousey spoke about her match against Baszler at SummerSlam 2023, which was held under MMA rules. Baszler won by submission after applying the Kirifuda Clutch.
“I love that fight being my [last] match. I think it would’ve probably gone much better over at like Bloodsport or something like that, but I think it was kind of the best way for me to be able to say goodbye.”
“And being the true heel, I wanted to give the big middle finger to all the fans on the way out and put on the fight that I wanted to put on with my best friend.”
“[I wanted to] have a great time and shove that fight, that match down their throat. Because there were so many moments in that [match,] it was kind of like our wrestling love letter to MMA [where we were] recreating all these moments that happened in MMA that we really loved that people in pro wrestling just wouldn’t recognize.”
“I won’t lie, the idea we had, we were a little bit handcuffed just based on the venue. There was no tron, so we knew the people in-house were going to have trouble maybe understanding some of the stuff because you need a camera and a close up of that. We couldn’t get a cage or a fight pit in there because of the rigging in a dome situation is totally different. There was a lot. We tried to work out some other things, it just didn’t work out. We did the best we could with what we had. I’m proud of it.”
Rousey’s comments line up with what Baszler had already told Fightful in 2024. At the time, she said the two had bigger ideas for the match, but were limited by the stadium, the lack of a proper video screen, and the inability to use a cage or Fight Pit.
In 2025, Baszler also said the rivalry had to be sped up because of a deadline involving Rousey, which prevented them from having a longer build to the match.