WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin reviewed WrestleMania 34 during a recent episode of his Steve Austin Show podcast. During the show, “The Texas Rattlesnake” spoke at length about the in-ring debut of “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey.
“This was such an entertaining match and I was really wondering how Ronda would handle the moment,” said Austin. “Some people have questioned some of her interview skills, and she’s not used to being on an RF mic in front of 20,000 people in these arenas. Mostly it’s trash-talk, and soundbites, and stuff like that and a shoot aspect, and not following storyline stuff, I was wondering, ‘would the moment be too great for her?’ And this match was so damn entertaining, there were so many twists and turns, and submission-type moves, and right when you thought, ‘well, here’s the finish,’ they extended it – that wasn’t the finish. And the crowd bought into this. It started off a tad slow. People were wondering, I think, just like I did, but boom! They set the hook there, mister. And, damn near from the bell, it was on. That crowd, everybody there was into that match.”
Austin continued, breaking down everything from Ronda’s ring gear to her smiling face to her actions inside the ring in front of such a massive crowd for her WWE debut.
“When she came out smiling, she looked like a million bucks.” Austin recalled, “I liked the plaid skirt and she came out. She had her gear on and then it was time. She got her game face on at the point, but I know where that came from. I’ll guarantee you that was straight out of the old man. ‘Go out there and smile’ because we know she’s a badass. We know she [has] got that mean mug face when it’s time to go out there and do business. And there were plenty of opportunities, and that did happen during the course of the match, but it felt a little weird to me, too, but, I think that he wanted her to smile just to be accessible, maybe to calm the nerves or maybe she’s more free when she’s focused, that laser-focus that she has. But I didn’t expect her to smile. But it was her first big performance in front of 78,000 people. Some people were knocking her on it. I could go either way on it, but I do know that when the bell rang, I was watching her body language and hang onto that tag rope.”
As far as her overall performance, the WWE Hall Of Famer explained that he would give her debut an A+ school letter grade.
“Obviously, they put a lot of time into this, she’s obviously a very talented person, and you had three hands in there with Kurt, Steph, and Triple H being able to go out there and help along with the referee,” Austin explained. “So all of the pieces were set in place for this thing to be, and this thing was built to make all of them shine, but specifically Ronda and help get her over. And yeah, this one, I thought they knocked a grand slam, the bases were loaded, and they knocked it out of the park. And so, we’ll see what happens in the future when she starts moving into single’s endeavors, tag team endeavors. Yeah, this was great and they pulled it off. So she still has work to do, but as far as her performance goes, I give her an A+. And I give the match an A+ because that’s how entertained I was by it.”
Check out the complete episode of the Steve Austin Show podcast at PodcastOne.com.
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