The professional future of Ronda Rousey has been uncertain ever since her last WWE match at SummerSlam where she lost to Shayna Baszler. Following the end of her second full-time WWE run in August, UFC CEO Dana White was forced to shoot down rumors that Rousey was eying an MMA return for the first time since late 2016. White pointed out that Rousey is currently focusing on her family and has since “moved on with her life.”
Earlier this month, the former UFC and WWE champion hinted that her loss to Baszler marked the end of her professional fighting career. Writing in a post to Instagram featuring photos of herself with her two-year-old daughter, husband Travis Browne, and close friend Marina Shafir, Rousey indicated that she had retired from both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts: “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you through my retirement.”
In a surprising development, however, Rousey made her professional wrestling return last night in an unannounced surprise appearance. During the first night of Lucha VaVOOM’s Halloween Spectacular Area 51, Rousey entered the ring from her front-row seat and was revealed as the mystery partner of Shafir in her tag team match against Taya Valkyrie and Brian Kendrick. Ronda eventually picked up the win for her team via an ankle lock on Kendrick. The full match can be seen below via a video uploaded to Ronda’s Instagram.
This marks Rousey’s very first professional wrestling match outside of WWE as well as her first professional wrestling match in almost three months. It remains to be seen if she’ll continue to compete on the independents or if this was simply a one-off match to team up with her close friend.
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