Ronda Rousey comes clean about her concussion issues in WWE.
Rousey has been promoting her new book, My Fight, and some of the interviews on the promotional tour have seen Rousey open up about her history with concussions. Ronda explained why she couldn’t talk about it then in a recent interview. She also recently went into more detail about the symptoms she experienced during her MMA and WWE career in a new interview with Cageside Seats‘ Rick Ucchino.
Rousey told Ucchino that multiple incidents in WWE left her with a concussion, including getting slapped by Stephanie McMahon at Elimination Chamber 2018. There, Rousey was advertised to sign her WWE contract. Rousey ended up putting Triple H through a table, and Stephanie retaliated with one of her trademark face slaps.
“I can finally be open about these things.”
“It gave me a concussion,” Rousey stated.
Rousey also shared how another segment with Nikki Bella ahead of the Revolution pay-per-view had her seeing stars all day.
“Nikki Bella gave me an open hand slap and I was seeing stars,” Rousey said. “I had a headache for the rest of the day.”
Ronda Rousey explained why she hid her symptoms, sharing that she didn’t want to be forced out of a spot she’d worked hard for.
“I didn’t wanna say anything. I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, you can’t do this match that you’ve been preparing for. You can’t do this, can’t do that. And I had a lifetime of experience hiding concussions,” Rousey explained. “And so now that I’ve basically putting all of that behind me, I can finally be open about these things.”
Just in case you were wondering how hard Stephanie McMahon hit her, Ronda Rousey told Ellen DeGeneres that it was a real slap and there’s “no real way to fake that.” ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne added that she’d heard that Rousey had a welted handprint on her face backstage.
