Ronda Rousey is Right About Triple H's Biggest Weakness as WWE's Creative Boss

Ronda Rousey added to her resume on Monday's Raw by partnering with Shayna Baszler to capture the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship.

However, that did not stop the UFC Hall of Famer from dropping an incendiary remark about the current state of women's wrestling in WWE to Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post:

"I want to be able to defend this title every week and even twice a week on both SmackDown and Raw.

"But with how dismally shallow the women's division is right now, there's not enough women around here to keep us busy for a month. And so that's the biggest challenge that we have is to get this company to actually care and invest into this tag division."

It is entirely plausible that Rousey was speaking in character, an arrogant heel dismissing the rest of her competition, but that doesn't necessarily make it inaccurate or lacking conviction.

For all that Triple H has done right at the helm of the WWE creative team, the women's division is noticeably lacking on the main roster.

Sure, Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair had one of the greatest matches in modern WrestleMania history in April and Bianca Belair has proved an innate ability to have a show-stealer with almost anyone, but those matches do not a great division make.

Rousey is right in regard to depth.

Despite a roster that touts immensely talented individuals such as Tegan Nox, Mia Yim, Shotzi, Natalya, Lacey Evans, Xia Li, Candice LeRae, Emma, Nikki Cross and Piper Niven, the roster lacks credible competition to the aforementioned stars at the top.

A lot of that can be attributed to a lack of creative focus for any of those women, but even consistent ring time would be of benefit to them. But women's wrestling has hardly been a priority of the regime thus far in 2023.

According to match times from Cagematch.net, there has been a staggering lack of in-ring time for women on Raw and SmackDown this year, with only 6.4 total hours given to the division across both shows through the first five months.

As a reminder, WWE airs five hours of its main roster product each week.

That does not account for promo segments, but those are typically reserved for the top-tier women who have already been established as stars for the company and would not count toward fixing the credible depth issue in the women's division.

Yes, like any entertainment field, pro wrestling is built around its top and most recognizable faces. It makes sense that WWE would devote more energy to a Becky Lynch or Trish Stratus.

And it would be foolish of the company not to focus on Ripley or Flair, but they are only as good as the talent around them. And as Rousey pointed out, the talent around the former UFC star and in the women's tag team ranks is not even adequate.

Triple H has five hours of television each week to work with and must manage that time to enhance the women's division in a way that benefits the stars and surrounding competitors alike.

He has already utilized Stratus to help introduce Zoey Stark as a big deal. Now, he has the opportunity to do the same with Rousey and Baszler, booking them as the undisputed stars of the tag division while simultaneously using them to help elevate Nox, Shotzi and other underused female wrestlers.

If he doesn't, the women's division will be made up of stars who are forced to work with each other repeatedly because the alternative is a matchup with another competitor that fans do not buy as credible competition.

More importantly, Triple H's reputation as chief creative officer will take a blow as it becomes more obvious with every passing week that the architect of the Women's Revolution in NXT is struggling to provide fans with the deep and engaging women's division worthy of the their time and emotional investment.

It begins with ring time and evolves with character work and promos. Without that first piece of the puzzle, though, building a connection with fans and legitimacy as competition to the very best talent is nearly impossible.