Thinking About Ronda’s Heel Turn
So, I spent some time thinking about Ronda Rousey in WWE, specifically when they turned her heel. You know, made her the bad guy. It was an interesting thing to watch unfold, so I kinda made it a little project to go back and see how it all went down, step by step.
First thing I did was just pull up a bunch of footage. Started from around the time the crowd began turning on her, even before the official switch. Then I watched the actual turn itself and the weeks after. Needed to see the progression, how they, and she, actually did the change.
What I noticed right away was the shift in her body language. It’s something you gotta consciously practice, I guess.
- She stopped smiling so much, obviously. That was job one.
- Started carrying herself differently. More stiff, more arrogant looking. Less bouncing around happy to be there.
- The way she looked at the crowd changed. Went from engaging with them to staring through them or just sneering.
Then there were the promos, the talking parts. This seemed like the harder bit for her. Early on, when she was the hero, she wasn’t always super smooth on the mic. As a heel, sometimes it felt like she was really leaning into the anger, other times it felt… kinda forced? Like someone told her, “Okay, you gotta be mad now, say this.” She definitely tried to deliver those lines with venom, you could see her working on it week to week.
Getting Into the Nitty-Gritty
I paid attention to the small stuff too. How she interacted with other wrestlers backstage in those little segments. She started disrespecting legends, talking down to interviewers. That’s classic heel playbook stuff. Easy to list, probably harder to do convincingly every single time.
Also watched how she wrestled. Became more aggressive, more vicious. Using submissions not just to win, but to hurt. Holding on too long after the bell. That part felt pretty natural for her, given her background. She could make that look real easy.
My takeaway from watching all this? Turning heel isn’t just flipping a switch. It’s a whole performance you have to practice and build. You gotta change how you walk, talk, look, and wrestle. For Ronda, some parts seemed to come easier than others. The physical stuff? Nailed it. Looked like a killer. The talking and the crowd interaction? That felt more like a work in progress. Sometimes it landed, sometimes it didn’t quite connect, for me anyway.
It was interesting just breaking it down piece by piece, seeing the effort involved. Not just saying “she turned heel,” but looking at how she actually went about doing the heel thing on TV every week.
