Ronda Rousey made her surprise return to WWE on Saturday night at the 2022 Royal Rumble pay-per-view. She entered the match at No. 28 and eliminated five other competitors, including SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair, in order to win the 30-woman bout. She then gave a backstage interview with Sarah Schreiber and seemed noticeably standoffish, consistently annoyed by the questions.
Schreiber started off by saying her win following her surprise return was quite the statement. Rousey responded with, “Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s the statement I wanted to make. I don’t know, that wasn’t a question at all, that was a statement.”
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When asked what her reaction to the moment was, she said, “I’m going to go back to my bus and love on my little baby and that’s really the only thing I care about right now, my priorities have changed.”
Schreiber followed up by asking why make her comeback tonight — “Why? Because it’s the Royal Rumble and I’ve always wanted to come out and win the Royal Rumble. What do you mean why tonight? What other night could be better?”
“There was quite a reaction tonight,” Rousey concluded. “And you can expect me not to fall for it this time.”
It’s possible that Rousey’s awkwardness was part of a potential heel turn. During her hiatus from WrestleMania 35 up until Saturday night, she made a number of public comments about her frustration with the WWE fans for slowly turning on her during her Raw Women’s Championship reign.
“So it’s just like … what am I doing it for if I’m not being able to spend my time and energy on my family, but instead spending my time and my energy on a bunch of f—ing ungrateful fans that don’t even appreciate me? I love performing. I love the girls. I love being out there … but, at the end of the day, I was just like, ‘F— these fans, dude,’” she said in an interview with Steve-O during her hiatus. “My family loves me and they appreciate me and I want all my energy to go into them. So that was my decision at the end of the day. It’s like, ‘Hey girls. Love what you’re doing. I’m gonna try and take all my momentum and push you guys as far as I can … fly little birds, fly! I’m going f—ing home!’ And that was basically it.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a baby. I could look down at this beautiful child and be like ‘f— everything, I don’t care about anything else other than this baby.’ And you’ll never see me again,” she added. “But I’m just saying, you never know, I don’t want to make any promises about the future when I don’t know how I’m gonna feel in the future.”
