On a recent edition of the “Unlocking the Cage” podcast, former WWE/UFC broadcaster Jimmy Smith addressed Ronda Rousey’s scathing comments regarding her WWE stint.
Smith was part of the RAW broadcast team during Rousey’s second WWE run in early 2022.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how Rousey wants all the credit for her successes but none of the blame for her failures: “I’ve never been a religious person. One of the things I’ve always said about God. He gets all the credit and none of the blame. That’s what Ronda Rousey wants. All the credit, none of the blame. ‘I want credit for all of my wins. My losses, I had CTE. I had this. I had that. I’m greatest to ever do it, but when it didn’t work, it was so and so and so and never me.’ She never gives credit to the people who actually beat her. The idea that ‘I left MMA and went to WWE because I had concussion problems,’ makes no sense. She didn’t go to tennis. She went to the WWE. The idea, ‘I was having problems and neurological damage.’ I’m sure on every form you filled out, in all the paperwork, you acknowledged you had neurological damage, right? Sure. Sure, you did.”
On how people behind the scenes in WWE and UFC couldn’t stand Rousey: “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t talk a lot out of school. I don’t talk about things behind the scenes, do I? Behind the scenes WWE, behind the scenes UFC, I don’t do that. Let me let you in on something, Ronda, if you’re listening, the people behind the scenes; camera people, audio people, the people you can push around and bully and talk down to, can’t stand your f***ing a*s. Everybody behind the scenes that had to put a mic on Ronda Rousey couldn’t stand her. I said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘She was a b**** to us from the moment she sat down to the moment she got up.’ Like it’s our fault that she has to do this interview to hype something or her next fight. ‘She’s miserable, she’s mean to us, and we can’t stand her.’ They were cheering when she got knocked out. This is what I was told. Those are the people you can be mean to and rude to, and they can’t fight back. Those people couldn’t stand Ronda Rousey. Don’t sit here and tell me that you’re the victim when the poor guy sitting behind the camera is doing his job gets s*** on by you and you’re mean to the person asking you questions when we’re hyping your fight. Don’t give me this victim s***. Don’t waste my time with it.”
On the backstage workers being happy when she lost to Holly Holm: “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t at the UFC while she was fighting. I didn’t bring it up. I’m sitting around with a group of cameramen, sound guys, we’re just shooting the s***. People who plug in the cable and make sh*t work, and Ronda Rousey came up. To a man, they all went, ‘She was a miserable person. She was mean to everybody.’ I went, ‘Alright.’ Folks, people don’t make that up. They aren’t scoring points with me. I met her one time. Give me a break with this grievance crap. They all went, ‘She was an insufferable monster to us.’ How you treat those people is who you are. That, to me, reveals what kind of person you are. She didn’t have one defender. She didn’t have one person who went, ‘She was alright.’ Everyone was like, ‘She was horrible. We were thrilled when she got crushed.’”
