Sunday 21st January 2018

WWE's biggest priority was to make sure that my presence at Sunday night's Royal Rumble event did not leak out ahead of time. Hunter had made that perfectly clear to me, saying that he wanted the moment when myself and the other surprise returnee entered the arena to really blow the fans away. That was why I had to be driven to the arena in a car with blacked out windows. The procedure was the same every year at the Royal Rumble, as there were always surprise entrants into the rumble match itself, but that wasn't what Hunter had planned for me. This was much bigger than an appearance in the rumble match, which was something I would have rejected because I would obviously not have been booked to win the match. The idea that Hunter had pitched to me was actually a fitting reason for me to return to the company, which was why I had accepted his offer.

There were several hours before the Royal Rumble event would get started, but there was still a large congregation of fans around the entrance to the parking garage, trying to get a glimpse of who was arriving. WWE had it under control though, as there were security staff keeping the road clear. My driver barely slowed down as he drove past the crowd and down the ramp into the garage.

A few moments later, I was out of the car and heading into the arena. I had two of my own security guys with me, and they walked with me, one on either side. It wasn't really necessary, but I liked the fact that in a way it made me look more important than everyone else. It had been more than two years since I had worked for WWE, which meant there would be a lot of new faces around, and that a lot of familiar ones were now gone. One of my few friends in the company was gone. Brie Bella had chosen to retire several months earlier. We had spoken on the phone about it, and she had told me that although she had risen to become one of the biggest stars of the Divas division, she had just never been able to feel happy in WWE following the death of her husband, Daniel Bryan. It was perfectly understandable, and I couldn't fault her for wanting to move on and try something different. Nikki Bella still worked for the company, and I would now be sharing a locker room with her. Hunter had offered me one of my own, but I wasn't interested in that.

I had been asked to report to Hunter when I arrived at the arena, so the first objective was to find out where his office was. I wondered who I would encounter first, hoping that it would be Sarita Lopez. I had been looking forward to bumping into her for two days, since finding out that I was coming back to WWE. It pleased me to think that Sarita was probably dreading it as much as I was relishing it. Sarita was the kind of person who liked to do a lot of talking about people, but not much talking to the same people. I hated that kind of thing. The truth of it was that she was right about a lot of the stuff that she had said about me, which I hated even more. She probably wasn't the only one who had figured out that a lot of my public image was bullshit, but she was certainly the only one who had gone public to call me out on it. Over the two years since I left WWE, both Sarita and I had said a lot about each other, but we had never actually spoken to each other. That was going to change tonight, and I had some choice words prepared for the bitch.

I asked a random crew member for directions to Hunter's office and we headed off to find it. The guy had looked like he was going to piss when he saw me, and I had expected him to ask to get a picture or something, but it seemed like the two huge guys in suits beside me put him off just with their presence, which was definitely one reason to have them around. Of course, I couldn't give the crew member that impression. I was working now, which meant that I had to present my best image to any fans and other randoms that I might encounter. I had to smile a lot, act like I was happy to see people, all of that bullshit. It was almost like getting in character, as I would do later in the night.

Disappointingly, although I saw and greeted several people, I didn't bump into anyone I actually knew before I reached Hunter's office. I knew that there would be three people waiting in there for me, and I was looking forward to seeing all of them. I had always gotten along well with Hunter and Stephanie, and even with the way things had ended when I left WWE, they had always been nothing but pleasant to me on the several occasions I had bumped into them at various events. The third person was someone who I was definitely keen to meet, although I had no idea how he was going to react to me. I was realistic enough to know that it could go either way. Without hesitating, I knocked on the door to the office and walked in.

The three people I had expected to see were indeed all in the room, and had been standing around drinking coffee and having a conversation about something. When I entered, they all turned to face me. Hunter greeted me first. "Hey Ronda, how are you?" he asked as he took a couple of steps towards me.

"Good, Hunter. You?" We exchanged a firm handshake.

"Really good." Hunter gestured at the man standing beside him. "Let me introduce you. Ronda, Shane. Shane, Ronda."

"Hey, how are you?" I smiled at Shane McMahon. I'd watched WWF when I was younger, back when Shane was one of the regular on-screen characters, and I had always liked his character and admired how well he could wrestle given his lack of a real athletic background. It was rare for me to actually be pleased to meet someone, but this was one such occasion. I had wondered if Shane would be cold to me, given what had happened between myself and Vince, but I saw no sign of coldness, resentment or anything like that.

"Hi Ronda, nice to meet you. Good to be back?" Shane asked.

We shook hands and I laughed as I answered him. "You tell me, you've been gone a lot longer than I have. I never thought this would happen, for either of us actually."

"Right," Shane grinned, but didn't offer anything more. I knew that he had left WWE because he had problems working with Vince, and I had hoped he would go into it in a bit more detail about it. Still, the old coot was the father of two of the people in the room, so it was hardly likely to be the place to verbally tear the guy apart, much as I would have liked to.

"Good to see you, Ronda," Stephanie greeted me next, and we exchanged a brief and slightly awkward hug. It really was not my greeting of choice, but Stephanie favoured it, so I went along with it.

"Hey Steph, you look great." I meant it too. Stephanie was one of those people that seemed to look better and better as she aged. I wondered what her secret was as she smiled at the compliment. Being rich and happy probably had a lot to do with it. I had one of those things, but not the other. One of my biggest regrets in life was allowing my relationship with Seth Rollins to fail. It was my fault as much, if not more so, than his. If I could have gone back and changed any part of my life, I would have chosen to change that in a heartbeat, even over getting onto the horse on the day I broke my neck. Seeing Seth with that little piece of trash May Devany was definitely going to be hard for me, when the time came.

Stephanie and I had gotten off to a difficult start when I joined the roster as wrestler, and there had been ups and downs since then too, but I respected her, which set her apart from most of the other people in the building. It had to have been Stephanie who had chosen me to come in for this storyline too, and I was proud that she would choose me.

Hunter and Stephanie proceeded to give me the idiots version of the on-screen storyline that had lead up to the point of my involvement. Their on screen characters, although they were husband and wife, had gotten into a rivalry which, in basic terms, revolved around who had control over decision making within WWE. Hunter had played the face role, and Stephanie had been the heel. Hunter had lost a match at the previous pay-per-view which had meant that he had to leave, unless Stephanie herself decided to bring him back at some point in the future. The following night on Raw, John Laurinaitis had returned, saying that he had been asked to represent the WWE board of directors and make an announcement. He had announced that due to Vince McMahon's imminent full retirement, his stocks in WWE were to be reassigned. The momentous occasion would take place at the Royal Rumble, and all seemed set for Stephanie McMahon to finally get her dirty hands on daddy's pot of gold.

With the recap complete, the four of us chatted away about other things for a few minutes, including what the original plan for this storyline had been before The Rock got injured. Apparently, I needed another reminder that I was the second choice. I decided to make my excuses and head off to find my locker room. The driver who brought me to the arena would have made sure that my things had been taken there for me by now.

It was only as I was walking out of the office that a thought hit me. It nearly made me stop in the doorway and turn around, but I managed not to. The whole conversation that I had just been a part of had seemed a little bit forced. Everyone had been just that little bit too polite to me, and had acted just that little bit too pleased to see me. The whole thing had been faked, as though Hunter had told Stephanie and Shane that I was hard to work with, so they should just be nice and get it over with. As soon as I thought about it, I was convinced that I was right, and it made me feel uncomfortable. It made me feel like I wanted to know what those people really thought of me.

My head had started to spin a bit, and I had an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, so I decided to hurry to the locker room that I was sharing with Nikki and talk to her. I knew that she was a true friend of mine and that talking to her would get rid of this strange and unpleasant feeling that I couldn't really describe. Part of me was asking why I should care if Hunter and Stephanie actually liked me, but another part was reminding me that, aside from Nikki, no one else in WWE liked me either. "Fuck it," I mumbled to myself as I hurried along the hallway, trying to tell myself that I didn't have to give a shit about anyone else's opinion of me.

Sometimes in life, things happen at precisely the best, or worst, moment possible. I rounded a corner and almost walked right into a legend. Someone who I had nothing but admiration for. Someone I had always wanted to meet, but had never had the opportunity to.

"Ronda," he greeted me, a little surprised himself to almost walk into me.

"Ric. Wow. I've always..." I managed to stop myself before it got any more cringe worthy. I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Ric Flair.

Ric let me off the hook by giving me a gentle smile, or at least I thought that was what he was doing, but then he spoke and I got a different impression. "I'm surprised to see you come back, honestly. I thought you were bigger than this place now." There was no hostility in his words, but they sure cut me. I would have preferred hostility to what I actually picked up on, which was disappointment.

"Sorry? What do you mean?" I managed to ask.

"Just what I said. You're bigger than WWE, right? You can walk away, bad mouth everyone who says anything negative about you, and that Ronda Rousey bandwagon just keeps rolling along."

If it was almost anyone else speaking to me like that I would have told them to fuck off, but this was, in my opinion, the greatest wrestler of all time, and I seriously doubted that his intention was to stand there and insult me. No, he had some kind of point that he was trying to make. "What are you trying to say to me, Ric? Just say it. I'm a big girl, I can take it."

"Alright," Ric nodded, taking me at face value. "You're the biggest waste of talent I've ever seen in this business. That's what I'm trying to say." His words hit me like one of Hunter's trademark sledgehammers, but he was far from done. "You think that having people chant your name makes you great? You think that wearing some dumb wristband makes you great? You think having millions of people follow you on Twitter makes you great? It doesn't. All that does is make you money. Every one of those girls back there in the locker room is better than you. Your best buddy Sarita Lopez is better than you. You know why? Because although that girl isn't that great in the ring, she's paid her dues. She goes out there five or six nights a week and busts her ass for this business. If you'd ever showed that kind of commitment, you could have been the best woman in the history of this business, but you won't, will you? And you know what? That's a damn shame."

"Back off, leave her alone," one of my security guys ordered Ric, but I turned on him and his partner.

"Fuck off, both of you," I barked at them. "We're having a private conversation here." The two men were surprised by my outburst, but they retreated to the end of the hallway, out of earshot.

I turned back to Ric and tried to think of something to say to him. I was still trying to take in everything that he had said. Being told that I was a waste of talent by Ric Flair himself was a very bitter pill to try and swallow. "I don't want to be a waste of talent," was all I could manage, knowing full well that I sounded childish.

"Then don't be," Ric replied simply. "Stop acting like you're better than God, and stop acting like you're entitled. Worry about going out there and performing. Worry about giving your best. And that doesn't mean looking good by beating people, either. It means putting other people over too, when they need it. This is World Wrestling Entertainment, not Ronda Rousey Entertainment."

"Right," I agreed quietly, finding myself wondering how different things would have been if someone had given me this talk more than two years earlier.

Ric still wasn't done with me. "I just mentioned Sarita Lopez and how hard she's been working. You buried that woman, and all she did was speak the truth. We both know it. She wasn't diplomatic about it, I'll grant you that, but you tore her apart for it. Even so, she's managed to work so hard that the fans eventually got behind her and Hunter put her on this face run. That kind of thing is what's admirable, not selling fucking wristbands to people."

I tried to cut in, but Ric didn't even let me get a full word out. "No, shut up. Answer me this, you were going to go up to Sarita tonight and try to intimidate her, weren't you? You were going to give her a bunch of mouth, weren't you?"

"Yes," I admitted.

Ric shook his head a little. "If you really mean what you say, that you don't want to be a waste of talent, you need to be a lot better than that. If you really mean it, you can start tonight. I hope you do."

With that, Ric was done and he walked past me, but I turned and stopped him by saying his name. "Ric? I ain't going to be a waste of talent. You're going to come to me at some point in the future, we're going to talk about this conversation, and you're going to tell me you're proud of me. I promise you that."

"I'll look forward to that," Ric smiled, and then he walked around the corner and was gone.

The two security guys started to walk back over to me, but suddenly their presence sickened me. "Get out of here. I don't need you tonight," I told them with a dismissive hand gesture. I didn't even wait for them to acknowledge me before I turned and headed off to find catering, which was where most people would be at this time. Ric had been speaking figuratively when he had referred to the women in the locker room. I wanted to find Sarita Lopez and I knew that even if she wasn't in catering someone would know where she was.

Sure enough, when I walked into the large and busy seating area I saw Sarita on the opposite side of the room, sitting and talking with a woman who I didn't recognise, but who was clearly a wrestler. Someone from NXT, I assumed, and started heading over to them. A strange atmosphere descended on the room, and it became noticeably quieter. People had noticed me enter, and expected to see sparks fly. They would have been right, if I hadn't spoken to Ric. I got halfway across the room when suddenly Dean Ambrose appeared in front of me.

"Leave it, Ronda," he told me, knowing exactly who I was heading for. "It's not going to help anything. Come sit with me, huh?"

I grinned at him. "There's something deeply messed up when you're being the voice of reason. You know that, right? It's okay, Dean, really."

"You know how to hurt a guy," he joked as he stepped aside. I was a little surprised that he believed me so easily.

I walked the rest of the way to Sarita's table. By the time I got there, she was standing up and had stepped away from the table slightly. She looked ready for the confrontation that she didn't know wasn't going to happen. She at least attempted a greeting. "Ronda."

"Sarita," I nodded as I stopped in front of her. "Listen, I uh, we've both said a lot about each other, and neither of us will gain anything by continuing it. Life's too short. How about we move on?"

Sarita understandably looked surprised as I extended my hand in a peace offering, and I could see that she was considering how to respond.

"Do it, girl," the woman who I didn't recognise encouraged from her seat at the table beside where we were standing.

My hand had hung in the air for a little longer than I liked, but Sarita took it and I was surprised by how pleased I felt as we shook hands. "Join us for a coffee?" Sarita invited, gesturing towards the table with her head.

Coffee was the last thing I wanted right then, but that didn't matter. The gesture of accepting the invite was what was important. "Sure, why not?"