Yet Another Major WWE Star Is Done Wrestling Full-Time

WWE has made a habit out of signing major stars to part-time deals, but one top star who’s already under contract with the company wants to transition to a more favorable schedule.

During an appearance on the Wild Ride! w/ Steve-O podcast (h/t WrestlingNews.co), Ronda Rousey said she will not wrestle a full-time schedule again if and when she returns to WWE:

“Well, if I ever do come back it will never be at a full-time capacity ever again. I think like for stints like chunks of time you know. I’m very much like an obsessive person or I like to obsess over something for a certain time and then like kind of go take some time to obsess about something else. But no I’m never gonna be full time again over 200 days a year on the road like that ever again because it’s just it was I needed to do it in order to learn and get like immersed into it and really understand what was going on but it’s just not the lifestyle for me.”

Rousey also blasted WWE’s “ungrateful” fans and said that she doesn’t want to “waste my time and energy” on the WWE Universe. The former UFC star has not wrestled for WWE since she lost the Raw Women’s Championship to Becky Lynch in the first ever all-women’s WrestleMania main event at WrestleMania 35 in April 2019, but “The Baddest Woman on the Planet” is still under contract with WWE until 2021. There has been all sorts of speculation regarding Rousey’s future in WWE and whether or not she will ever actually wrestle again. Shortly after her WrestleMania 35 loss to Lynch, she was reportedly penciled in to face “The Man” in singles action at WrestleMania 36, but that pay-per-view came and went without an appearance from Rousey, who has let it be known that she and husband Travis Browne are trying to start a family.

That seems to be the biggest potential detrimental to a possible in-ring return for Rousey, who had the rumor mill buzzing about that potential return to action when she was spotted at WWE Headquarters, but it was reported way back in January that Rousey wasn’t going to wrestle at WrestleMania 36 despite plenty of speculation to the contrary. Right around that same time, Rousey said she would return to WWE “whenever…I feel like it,” noting that she would like to show up purely at non-televised live events if that was possible. If and when WWE brings Rousey back, however, the company isn’t going to waste her infrequent appearances at a live event, which is a struggling business for the company anyway.

Rousey would likely instantly be thrust into a marquee storyline on Raw or SmackDown, but as noted by Rousey herself, her return to WWE programming would also coincide with a transition to a reduced role. During her previous run with WWE that ended at WrestleMania 35, Rousey wasn’t on the road as much as the average full-timer but was about as close to a full-time star as you can get, and in hindsight, that may have limited the impact she would have had if she had appeared less frequently. Rather than Rousey becoming a huge special attraction for the company, it felt as if she had just become another superstar in the often poorly booked women’s division. Although WWE fans often turn on part-time stars, transitioning Rousey to that role is a sensible move.

Names like John Cena and Rey Mysterio are among the high-profile stars who have openly said that their body an’t handle the full-time grind anymore. WWE star Daniel Bryan also recently revealed that his contract is expiring soon and he longer wants to wrestle a full-time schedule while big names like Edge have also been able to get themselves huge contracts without having to wrestle on a weekly basis. It appears that Rousey—if and when she comes back—will follow suit, joining the likes of Cena, Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker and other infrequently seen household names who show up here and there to provide a boost to WWE programming, which has struggled in the ratings department on both Raw and SmackDown in recent years.

Rousey demonstrated during her previous run with WWE that she is a phenomenal in-ring talent who undoubtedly helps improve the quality of the women’s division, but as with WWE’s infrequently seen part-timers, there is a delicate balance between those stars appearing too little or too much. When they’re around too often, that minimizes their drawing power, but when they’re not around enough, their presence becomes a point of frustration among fans.

So, WWE will want to ensure that Rousey wrestles enough to make fans want to see her but not so much that they quickly grow tired of her.