In the wake of Ronda Rousey’s reported WWE departure, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley penned down a lengthy note on Facebook to reflect on the rollercoaster pro wrestling career of “The Baddest Woman on the Planet” and the possible reasons Rousey didn’t thrive in the business the way many had expected her to.
Foley acknowledged that Rousey’s WWE debut in 2018 paralleled that of other former greats, stressing that she made a seamless transition from MMA to pro wrestling, to the point where she proved to be the catalyst for women to make history by headlining WrestleMania. However, as the years progressed, many of Rousey’s flaws became evident, the most glaring of which was her inability to cut a good promo — an undeniable pre-requisite to thrive in pro wrestling or any other branch of show business.
“I would put Ronda’s rapid progress up there with that of Steve Austin, Kurt Angle and The Rock — the fastest learning curves I’ve personally seen in our business,” Foley wrote. “But each of those giants had one formidable arrow in their quivers that Ronda never quite got the grasp of — the ability to cut a great promo. That’s really all that was missing, all that prevented Ronda from being considered an all-time great.”
Rousey previously attributed her subpar microphone skills to her childhood battle with a motor speech disorder, telling “USA Today” in an interview that she considered promos as the “most difficult aspect of wrestling.”
The former UFC star — who underwent years of speech therapy — admittedly still tends to slur or mispronounce words and gets nervous at the very idea of public speaking. As a result, many wrestling pundits and fans previously urged WWE to pair Rousey with a mouthpiece like Paul Heyman just to protect her from herself.
