Tony Khan Reveals How Ronda Rousey ROH Appearance Came About, Clarifies Her AEW Status

Ronda Rousey is officially living the life of an independent wrestler, including making a stop in Ring of Honor, where Rousey made her promotional debut at this week's ROH taping, teaming with Marina Shafir to take on Billie Starkz and ROH Women's World Champion Athena. According to AEW President and ROH Owner Tony Khan, the appearance was a one-off for now.

"She's not signed but we had a great conversation," Khan said at the post-AEW Full Gear press conference. Rousey had wrestled against Starkz earlier in the week at a local show in Los Angeles, and Khan wanted to keep the animosity going and felt the feud would be a good addition to that week's Ring of Honor. This corroborates a previous report that said Rousey was booked to help increase HonorClub subscriptions.

"Ronda was happy to come here and she was great and the crowd was really excited to see her," Khan gushed. "We'd love to have her back sometime." Rousey is also a Los Angeles-area local, making the recent tapings in Inglewood easy for the former WWE Raw Women's Champion to attend.

The former UFC Champion wrestled for WWE from 2018, racking up numerous accolades as well as a Royal Rumble win, until this past summer when she and WWE parted ways. She re-emerged in October, wrestling alongside Shafir at Lucha VaVoom, wrestling Taya Valkyrie and Brian Kendrick. Former AEW Women's World Champion Thunder Rosa said Rousey could be a great addition to the AEW locker room, should she someday sign.