When Ronda Rousey opted to leave WWE when her contract came to an end, it surprised fans to an incredible degree. Sure, her act wasn’t exactly the most popular in WWE history, and her final “MMA Rules” match with Shayna Baszler was as underwhelming as the “Queen of Spade’s” push has been since, but still, Rousey is a certified WWE Hall of Famer for her contributions to female combat sports and her main event spot with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 35.
Since then, however, things have taken a turn for the interesting when, while promoting her new book “Our Fight,” Rousey decided to go scorched Earth on her former employer in order to add her voice to the chorus of detractors against former Chairman of the Board, Vince McMahon.
Discussing the new WWE in an appearance on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, the “Baddest Woman on the Planet” revealed that, while she’s happy to see that Mr. McMahon is gone from the company, Ari Emanuel won’t be able to get the promotion back on track as long as the former Chairman’s influence persists.
“I mean supposedly, he’s out now because they paying company funds so he could s**t on some girl’s head in the office and do a threesome with her and Johnny Laurinaitis. But his cronies are still there. So when that stuff started coming out, and Vince was gone before, he was still basically calling it in and running the company. But Bruce Prichard, who’s there now, who’s like the head of creative or whatever title they gave him, is basically just taking orders from Vince and still running the company through him. So when Vince resigned formally because of all these s**ual allegations and stuff that was coming out, he was still running the company informally, and I think he still is to this day,” Ronda Rousey explained on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett via 411 Mania.
“Steph and Triple H, I think they’re honestly doing their best. But I mean, I think that Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment, and I think if Ari Emanuel is gonna be able to actually make this multi-billion dollar dysfunctional organization into one that functions, he’s gotta clean out all of Vince’s cronies. He’s gotta completely clean house and remove Vince’s influence completely. No one’s asking me, but that’s just what I experienced when Vince was gone. He was still running the show through people that he’d hired in the past, Bruce Prichard being number one of them. Bruce Prichard, literally I never heard him say a single one of his own opinions. He’d only say, ‘Vince says this, Vince says that. Vince, Vince, Vince.’ So he’s literally just, I called him Vince’s avatar. That’s basically what he is.”
Over WrestleMania 40 weekend, you seemingly couldn’t go an hour without someone pointing out that WWE is now in the Paul Levesque and/or Triple H Era, which is a pretty thinly veiled way of saying the Vince McMahon Era is now over. Still, in Ronda Rousey’s opinion, words are one thing, but actions speak louder, and for as long as former McMahon guys are around, that book can never truly be turned over.
Triple H was sold on Ari Emanuel’s vision of WWE.
Speaking of the new WWE under Ari Emanuel and his TKO label, Paul ” Triple H” Levesque revealed what it was like to work for someone other than Vince McMahon and why he decided to stay with the company after such a massive change at the top.
“I’m loving what I do, that’s the biggest thing for me. When TKO went down and Ari Emanuel talked to me about this, I said, ‘I just want to have fun. If it’s fun, I stay. If It’s not, we’ll figure out something us,’” Triple H said during the WrestleMania 40 Press Conference via Fightful. “We’re having fun. I want everyone to have fun. When the signature was playing, I picked up the headset and said, ‘Biggest thing we want to remember tonight, everybody, have fun. Enjoy this.’ If this is fun, everybody loves it. If we have fun making it, you’re going to enjoy watching it. That’s what I believe.”
So far, Levesque’s opinion has largely been proven true, as performers are routinely discussing how much fun they’re having in the new WWE. The shows are massive, the crowds have been hot, and if that continues, this era may truly go down as one of the best in WWE history.
