Ronda Rousey And Fellow WWE Star Reportedly Book Their Own Angle
While we have yet to see a feud between real-life friends Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler in WWE, the pair has reportedly had a hand in putting the pieces of an angle together without any influence from the creative team. Earlier this summer, as Fightful reports, Rousey was involved in a feud with WWE veteran Natalya involving the "SmackDown" Women's Championship. Notably, Natalya was teaming with Baszler around this period and the Queen of Spades was ultimately integrated into the storyline, with Rousey and Baszler "giving a nod to their years long history and friendship with one another."
During the rivalry, a video was released on WWE on Fox's social media in which the pair "made sense" of the situation, giving the fans an insight into their dynamic. It was this particular angle that Rousey and Baszler reportedly worked together on without any involvement from WWE's creative team.
Former housemates Rousey and Baszler, who are a part of MMA's Four Horsewoman alongside Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir, first encountered one another on-screen while working for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which saw Rousey train Baszler during "The Ultimate Fighter" reality series between September and November in 2013. It was from here that the pair's friendship was cemented. Both would eventually sign for WWE in 2017 — Baszler debuted during the Mae Young Classic that year and Rousey made her first on-screen appearance as an official WWE employee at the Royal Rumble event in 2018. While the duo have yet to collide one-on-one in a WWE ring, they have squared off once in tag team action on the May 27 episode of "WWE SmackDown," in which the team of Rousey and Raquel Rodriguez defeated Baszler and Natalya.