Is This Ronda Rousey's Last Ride With WWE?

Ronda Rousey may be in the midst of her last ride with WWE, and if so, all signs point to her going out in honorable fashion.

Shayna Baszler betraying her at Money in the Bank 2023 took the entire audience by surprise. There were no teases of tension prior to that point, and it appeared their reign as WWE Women's Tag Team champion was just getting started.

Per Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter, their split has been in the works for a while and a feud pitting the two against each other was always designed to be Rousey's swan song from the company with an undisclosed "hard out" for her in mind.

From headlining WrestleMania to winning multiple titles to now working with her best friend, Rousey has virtually done it all in WWE. By and large, her latest run has been less than stellar and this might be the smartest way to ensure she ends it with a bang.

Rousey's return at the Royal Rumble in 2022 should have been special than it was. After nearly three years away, she received a resounding reaction from that night's crowd in St. Louis and went on to win the women's Rumble, but being miscast as a babyface immediately hindered her momentum.

Instead of being rekindling her rivalry with Becky Lynch and giving fans the marquee match they were deprived of in 2019, she set her sights on Charlotte Flair and jumped ship to SmackDown. The idea could have been to revisit their feud at a later date, but they never crossed paths again following their one interaction on the post-Rumble Raw.

Whether it was their uninspired promos or their disappointing WrestleMania match, Rousey vs. Flair fell flat. Rousey seemed to get back on the track upon capturing the SmackDown Women's Championship from Flair at Backlash, but the follow-up was horribly handled.

From that point forward, it was one misstep after another for Rousey. Her second stint as SmackDown Women's champ was fairly forgettable, her matches have been it or miss, and her character hasn't been clearly defined at times.

All of these blunders led to her stock in the eyes of the audience plummeting and her no longer feeling like an attraction. She officially feels like just another member of the roster with the way she's been booked.

Credit: WWE.com

None of this is to say that The Rowdy One should be dominating the division on either SmackDown or Raw right now, but more consistency would have been a huge help in establishing her as a force to be reckoned with, similar to how she was handled during her original run with WWE.

Rousey is still a notable enough name that she'll bring legitimacy to the women's scene simply by being a part of it, but it isn't hard to see why she could be looking to call it quits with wrestling and explore other endeavors.

She's competed against a lot of the top talent and has won all three of WWE's major women's championships, as well as a Royal Rumble. The ship has sailed on a program with Lynch and there isn't much else for her to do now that her and Baszler's tag title reign has been cut short.

Her only order of business as she presumably prepares to depart the promotion should be to elevate Baszler to the best of her ability and get her back to her NXT roots as a one-woman wrecking crew.

Rousey's had her fair share of opportunities in WWE and has made the most of each of them, but Baszler hasn't been afforded that same luxury. She had to work her way up through WWE's developmental system before finally moving to the main roster in early 2020.

She, too, was creatively damaged at every turn, except the biggest difference between her and Rousey is that Rousey can sustain the bad booking because she had a presence in pop culture pre-WWE and will have that mainstream connection no matter what.

Baszler has always been positioned as a challenger but never a champion, or at least not on her own. The perception is that she's a perennial tag team player, but anyone who watched her decorated NXT run knows what she's capable of.

This rivalry with Rousey provides Baszler with a chance to cement herself as an actual singles star. The aftermath would be crucial, of course, as it's entirely possible she returns to irrelevancy once Rousey is gone.

Since the split from Rousey, Baszler has shown that she can hang both in the ring and on the mic. Her Raw squash against Emma was met with a tepid reaction, but that's because WWE hasn't made it apparent who the babyface in the feud is supposed to be.

What Rousey is currently attempting to achieve with Baszler has been her greatest strength throughout her tenure in WWE. She's willing to elevate others when necessary and recognizes that certain competitors should be spotlighted more than they are.

That was what her rivalry with Liv Morgan last year was designed to do and eventually Raquel Rodriguez. Due to being a polarizing figure with fans based on comments she's made in the past (among other reasons), she doesn't get enough credit for her efforts in fostering the talent of tomorrow.

Misunderstood performer or not, Rousey's contributions to the company should not go unnoticed. Her impressive accolades and impact she had on WWE's women's division early on make her a sure-fire WWE Hall of Fame inductee someday (but not too soon).

The buildup to this potentially final farewell with Baszler at SummerSlam should be enough of an indicator that Rousey is eyeing the exit, but also that she intends on closing out her career with some of her strongest work yet.

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Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.