Kendo sticks and stones will break Ronda Rousey’s bones, but the WWE Universe booing her…really hurt her. The fans seemingly turned against Ronda during her Survivor Series match with Charlotte Flair, 32, on Nov. 18, especially after Charlotte went full villain. Yet, getting beaten within an inch of her life wasn’t the worst thing to happen to her that night. “Ronda was more disappointed in the reaction she got in the Staples Center than the beating she took,” a source close to Ronda EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife.com. “People were booing her and chants rang out of ‘Thank You Charlotte’ after being attacked and that got Ronda very upset. It actually made Ronda cry not only on air but in the back.”
“She is okay with taking on the extra beatdowns because to her,” the source tells HollywoodLife.com, “it proves to the other girls in the locker room that she is in the WWE for the long run and this isn’t a temporary job. She feels last night proved to her peers that she is a tough person and she will continue to work hard and make everyone proud of her. Her ego is the most bruised right now because she thought people were going to feel sympathetic for her and that didn’t happen. The crowd basically turned its back on her, and she is more upset over that.”
“She will address her true feelings this evening,” the source said, indicating the upcoming episode of Monday Night Raw. The WWE’s flagship show will air from the Staples Center out in Los Angeles, the same location of Survivor Series. During the program, airing on the USA network at 8pm ET / 7 pm CT, will likely see Ronda “lash out on the audience,” the insider adds. Ronda’s ready to share her “disapproval over how she was treated. For Ronda, wounds heal, emotions take a little longer.”
To be honest, the chances that Ronda was going to get a sympathetic reaction from the WWE Universe. The initial match was Ronda versus current SmackDown Women’s champion Becky Lynch, 31. Becky was pulled from the match after suffering a concussion less than a week before Survivor Series. Had the match gone through, though, the crowd would have been behind Becky.
Charlotte destroys Ronda and the crowd erupts in a “Thank you Charlotte!” Chant! #WWE #SurvivorSeries pic.twitter.com/xc4mc7OAfY
— NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW news (@nodqdotcom) November 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/peytonroyce/status/1064352191761141760
Despite her becoming a full villain, Becky remains a fan favorite. She turned evil (heel) at SummerSlam, attacking Charlotte – her legit BFF – to not the crowd’s shock, but applause. The WWE fanbase is quite “Ride or Die” with Becky, so whenever she ambushes the entire RAW locker room or steals Charlotte’s family catchphrase to dub herself “The Man,” the fans continue to cheer her.
“[The] whole time they have been cheering for me, they’ve supported me,” she said on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast, per ComicBook.com. “They’ve put me in the position to win sometimes you know and even when we talk about the first ever Smackdown Women’s Champion, the crowd wanted me to be the Champion so they dictate a lot.”
In the case of Survivor Series, they dictated that they would love Charlotte more than Ronda. How will she respond? Better tune into Raw to find out.