Ronda Rousey Reveals Top Superstar Pushed Back Against Time Constraints for Huge WWE Title Match

At WrestleMania 39, Charlotte Flair defended the SmackDown Women's Championship against Rhea Ripely. Their feud dates back to the pandemic days when Ripley was still in NXT. Flair challenged for the NXT Women's Championship at WrestleMania 36, something unprecedented at the time. Unfortunately for Ripley, Flair would walk out of the match with the championship, ending her reign just shy of 100 days. Ripley eventually got her revenge when WrestleMania 39 came around. Now on the main roster, her stock in WWE was on the rise. She won last year's Royal Rumble match and set a record as the Iron Woman of the match. At WrestleMania 39 their feud came to a head as Ripley would finally get her huge win over Flair and her first big WrestleMania moment.

Ronda Rousey, who has been making headlines this week for her comments about the WWE workplace and Vince McMahon in her new book Our Fight: A Memoir, spoke to Cageside Seats for an in-depth interview. During said interview, the women's title match from last WrestleMania was brought up and Rousey revealed that it wasn't even originally scheduled to go as long as it did. In fact Flair is the one that put her foot down.

Charlotte Flair Put Her Foot Down for WrestleMania Title Match Against Rhea Ripley

"They weren't supposed to go that long. The whole time the referee is telling them to go backstage and Charlotte threw her big d--k on the table and said 'no, we're gonna do this awesome f—-ing match.' That's what [the women are] dealing with. They're not allowed to show how f—-ing amazing they are, because 'Oh, the crowd's gonna be tired for the guys match afterward.' That's bull s—-!"

Ripley will walk into this WrestleMania as champion, a whole calendar year after she won it from Flair. In that time, she's become one of the top merchandise sellers and has won fans over with her "Mami" persona as the sole female member of the Judgment Day. Ripley will face "The Man" Becky Lynch, a match years in the making.

Rousey departed WWE following SummerSlam 2023 where she faced Shayna Baszler in an "MMA Rules" match. Baszler has recently opened up about that match, noting they were originally supposed to have a crossover but things fell through. In the same Cageside Seats interview, The former four-time women's champion Rousey discussed her reasoning for leaving WWE this time around, telling WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque she didn't want to be associated with "mediocrity."