In 2020, Ronda Rousey caught a lot of backlash after she stated that pro wrestling matches are “fake fights for fun.”
This is something the SmackDown Women’s Champion addressed when she spoke with Kurt Angle on The Kurt Angle Show and was talking about injuries.
“It really does help a lot,” Rousey said of pro wrestling, “and I don’t think pro wrestlers understand how much that it helps because a lot of times I’ll hear people be so offended that like, ‘How dare you call this fake! There’s no fake way to go through a table,’” Rousey continued, “or ‘This injury is real.’ And I’m like, ‘You guys, it’s not like the physical toll that makes something real.’”
“The injuries don’t enter into your mind,” Rousey said of her time in MMA. “It’s the anxiety and uncertainty of the result,” that makes the situation real, as opposed to the predetermined outcome of a pro-wrestling match.
“Imagine if you didn’t win that gold medal, Kurt, and what that would have done to you for the rest of your life,” Rousey continued, “That is what makes it real to me.”
“Injuries, I don’t care. People get injured all the time playing ‘Pirates of Penzance,’” Rousey said, emphasizing the theatrical nature of her current profession, while also acknowledging the dangers of everyday life. “There’s a lot of difficult, physical things out there that the realism to me is that extreme anxiety.”
Quotes via
Wrestling Inc