Ronda Rousey, as you may have heard, is here. The former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion arrived at Royal Rumble with an eye toward WrestleMania, and rumor has it she’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future. That said, she didn’t show up on Raw or SmackDown LIVE after the Rumble, so nobody has any idea who’s on her radar as far as opponents go. That is where WWE.com comes in. Here are five opponents we think would give “Rowdy” Ronda a good fight as she adjusts to her new life in WWE.
We’ll start with the obvious. The winner of the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble Match has already punched her ticket to WrestleMania on the back of her historic victory, though nobody knows who she’s going to be facing. Of course, Rousey’s arrival made it seem as though she wasn’t going to let Asuka waltz right past her to The Showcase of the Immortals. “Rowdy” Ronda attempted to smooth over the interruption with a friendly handshake to Asuka, though her gesture was rejected in something of a warning shot from The Empress of Tomorrow, who slapped her hand away. Ronda may have the headlines, but the path to the future still goes through Asuka … and she might just want her spotlight back.
Can we interest you in Horsewoman vs. Horsewoman? Of course we can! Rousey isn’t the first member of her Four Horsewomen squad to set foot in the squared circle; that’d be Shayna Baszler, who was runner-up in the Mae Young Classic and is already gunning for the NXT Women’s Championship. It’s a long shot that Rousey would marinate in Full Sail University after the pyrotechnics of her arrival at Rumble, but if she did, Baszler would be right there to go hold for hold.
Another mixed martial artist who’s making waves in WWE, Sonya Deville isn’t so much a submission expert like Rousey as she is a calloused striker who can drop opponents at will. Deville has only been on Raw for a couple of months as part of Absolution, but has been training for some time under the WWE umbrella. This could be a perfect chance for sports-entertainment newcomer Rousey to show she can hang with someone who knows the ropes, or an opportunity for Deville to show just what she’s capable of.
If you follow Nia Jax on Twitter (and you should), you probably know she wasn’t altogether enamored with Rousey’s appearance at the end of the 30-Woman Royal Rumble Match. As Kurt Angle likes to say, let’s settle it in the ring. The Irresistible Force is not immune to drawn-out, submission-based gameplans (see her matches with Bayley in NXT), but when she has something to prove, she tends to take things to another level. It’s safe to say she has something to prove here, or at least a point to make.
Can we interest you in another Horsewoman vs. Horsewoman match? While Rousey and her girls were running rampant through the world of MMA, Charlotte Flair was part of a similar crew with Sasha Banks, Bayley and Becky Lynch, who were changing the game in NXT and wound up ushering in the Women’s Evolution on Raw. The Queen was in the ring to field a potential challenge from Asuka when Rousey made her entrance at the end of Royal Rumble, and she was clearly dripping with disdain when Rousey shockingly staked her claim to The Showcase of the Immortals. If The Empress of Tomorrow chooses the Raw Women’s Champion as her WrestleMania opponent, Charlotte could get to express her distaste in a far more aggressive manner.