Update: Since the writing of this post, Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler have been announced for the Fatal 4-Way WWE Women’s Showcase tag team match at WrestleMania 39.
WrestleMania always brings out the biggest names in sports entertainment and beyond but this year, one big name may not be on the card. Ronda Rousey has taken to Instagram to share an injury update ahead of WWE’s biggest show of the year.
“How do you train with no ACL or cartilage in your right knee as well as a fractured radius?” Rousey began. “Focus on what you CAN do – I have some of the most versatile training routines on earth, I need to do PT, build strength, retain flexibility, and train technique across multiple disciplines – sometimes all in a single session.”
The former UFC Champion went on to discuss how her more than two decades of combat sports training have taken a toll on her body, and how the “smallest misstep could result in surgery.” With that in mind, she recalled a story from when she got injured at the age of sixteen. Two weeks after her ACL reconstruction, her mother had her doing pushups as a learning lesson. Lesson learned? You can’t sit around and feel sorry for yourself.
Due to her ACL injury, Rousey says she focused on Newaza or ground techniques in judo and eventually became one of the best in the world at armbars. After years of dislocations from not tapping out to what is now her signature finishing move, her elbow, “fractured simply by slapping the mat in Rockford, Illinois- right before Wrestlemania.”
While that injury would be daunting for many, the same cannot be said for Rousey. She closed her comments with a warning to her would-be WrestleMania opponents, “The only thing saving these chicks now are the doctors not letting me compete. Well ladies, they can’t keep me away forever, I’m not moping, vengeance is coming.
Rousey does not currently have a match announced for WWE WrestleMania 39. Both of WWE’s top women’s title matches are already booked so if Rousey is able to compete, it would likely be alongside Shayna Baszler in the Fatal 4-Way Women’s WrestleMania Showcase match. Only one team has qualified for the match so far, Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan, but Rousey and Baszler have been working as a unit and would seem like a lay-up to qualify.
Stay with Haus of Wrestling for all the latest on Ronda Rousey’s WWE WrestleMania 39 status.