Ronda Rousey has made it clear she is not planning to step back into the wrestling ring, nearly two years after her last WWE appearance.

Speaking on The Lapsed Fan podcast, Rousey admitted that wrestling is firmly behind her. “Pretty much, I’d say so,” she said when asked if her in-ring career was over. Rousey explained that her motivation to join WWE in 2018 was rooted in wanting to wrestle alongside her friends, the Four Horsewomen, but claimed that promise was never fulfilled.

“I got into WWE because I wanted to be able to wrestle with my girls, you know, the Four Horsewomen and be able to wrestle with my friends. And they kind of dangled that carrot for my whole run and never let it happen. And then the second run, they kept dangling it. And then by the end, I was like, I’m f*cking leaving unless I can wrestle with Shayna [Baszler]. And that’s how I was able to do it at all.”

Rousey’s WWE career included two runs, beginning with her debut at WrestleMania 34 and ending with her final match against Shayna Baszler at SummerSlam 2023. After that, she wrestled in a few independent appearances to team with Marina Shafir.

Since then, Rousey’s focus has shifted away from the ring. She gave birth to her second daughter with husband Travis Browne earlier this year, and she has turned her attention to creative projects. She has been writing, with a Netflix film about her life currently in development, and her graphic novel, Expecting the Unexpected, is scheduled for release in October.

Reflecting on her time in WWE, Rousey described it as a “sabbatical” where she gained experience she now carries into her other ventures.

“That’s what made me have to step away, because it got to the point where I’m just like, they’re never going to allow me to make it as good as it can be, and, like, meeting them halfway in this range of mediocrity is like crushing my soul. So I can’t continue to do that,” she said. “So I’m going to go f*cking be awesome and doing other things.

“I’ll take everything that I learned from pro wrestling and apply it elsewhere into my other passions, you know, in comics and fight choreography and in film and screenwriting and all of these things. If anything, it was like I was doing like a sabbatical. When you go off and you study something for years and come back and utilize what you learned, that was my wrestling sabbatical. I will take everything that I learned from that and apply it to all the other spaces that are bringing me joy.”