Ronda Rousey Talks #MeToo Movement, Speech Disorders & Being Accepted By Fans In WWE

Ronda Rousey sat down with USA Today for an interview to promote her new movie with Mark Wahlberg, Mile 22. In the interview, “The Baddest Woman On The Planet” talked about fans welcoming her into the pro wrestling fold, her time in speech therapy and gave her thoughts on the #MeToo movement. Below are some snippets, but you can read the entire interview by going here.

On the most difficult aspect of wrestling so far:

I grew up with apraxia, which is a motor speech disorder. I had years of speech therapy, and I’ve always had problems slurring or mispronouncing my words. In the ring, it’s so important that you speak so clearly and you’re easy to understand and that you don’t falter at all, that it makes me more nervous and more likely to actually mispronounce things. It’s been really great for me to be able to work on it and overcome those fears that I’ve had since I was a little kid.

Being welcomed by wrestling fans:

I expected everyone to boo me out of the building from Day One, and every time I walk out there, I feel like I’m just falling in love with every single person at once. It would be fun to turn (bad) one day but it’s addicting to have all that positivity.

On the #MeToo movement:

To be honest, I don’t really have that much experience with the #MeToo movement. I notice that men and women seem almost less comfortable around each other since the movement, because everyone’s afraid to have one person (post) one wrong tweet about them. I think it’d be less likely for a male director and a female actor to go out and have lunch just to talk about the movie. It’s almost putting this fear and distrust in people, (and) what trial by Twitter has really done is keep people apart. Everyone has to hang out in a group now. Maybe that’s safer, or maybe that’s better.

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