"Over the course of the next month, our cameras will be given unprecedented, complete, twenty four seven access into the life of a WWE Superstar. And not just any Superstar. We will be following the life of Ronda Rousey, the woman who changed the game for all female wrestlers. Her unique style, her incredible presence in the ring, and her amazing physique have enabled her to get into the ring and go toe to toe with all comers, be they female, or occasionally even male. There has never been a woman like her in the wrestling industry before.
"It is widely accepted that Ronda's presence in WWE is the main reason for the Divas division transitioning from what was once perceived by some almost as a joke, to what is now undoubtedly one of the centrepieces of sports entertainment. Our footage, combined with that of the WWE Network, will get you closer to the four time Divas Champion and star of three Hollywood blockbusters than you have ever been before. She is Ronda Rousey. She is a revolutionary."
For Thea Trinidad, it was time to begin filming the documentary that she hoped would prove to be her big break. Being hired to front a project that WWE were giving a lot of importance to meant the potential for huge success was definitely there, but equally so was the potential for failure. Rumor had it that Ronda Rousey could be hard to work with, especially if she decided that she didn't like or respect you, for whatever reason. Temperamental was the word that Stephanie McMahon had used in their briefing. It didn't help that Stephanie had wanted the first scene of the documentary to be a genuine first meeting between Thea and the woman she would be spending the next month living with.
Stephanie's instructions were to make the documentary seem as informal as possible. The example that WWE's CEO had given was that she wanted the viewer to be able to picture themselves sitting in Ronda's hotel room with Thea and Ronda as they had a late night chat over a glass or two of wine. What they wanted to show was Ronda going about her everyday life, rather than turning the whole thing into some stage managed atrocity that resembled most of the other reality TV shows out there.
Ground rules for the documentary had been laid down to both parties weeks earlier when Ronda had first agreed to take part, so at least that was one thing Thea didn't need to worry about. Pleasingly, Ronda had chosen not to be awkward and start trying to introduce a long list of rules of her own regarding what could and could not be filmed or talked about. In fact there was only one restriction of that nature, which Thea and WWE had agreed to. That was something to think about later though, because she was currently walking towards Ronda's locker room to meet her for the first time. It was time to give her first piece to the camera as she walked along the hallway.
"Ready?" she asked her cameraman, who gave a nod of confirmation a second later.
"My name is Thea Trinidad. I'm backstage here at WWE's Survivor Series pay-per-view, and I'm about to meet Ronda Rousey for the first time. You're probably thinking, 'Sure you are. You've probably been talking to her for an hour before filming this.' But no, I really have never met her before. And honestly, I'm feeling a little nervous about it. Her locker room is just up here, so let's go ahead and give the door a knock."
After walking the final few paces up to the door, which had Ronda's name displayed on a small plaque on the wall beside it, Thea gave it a knock which sounded a little more timid than she would have liked.
In a matter of moments the door was opened by Ronda, who was dressed in her ring gear, which consisted of a black sports bra and black shorts, both of which bore her trademark, elaborately designed RR logo in a dark shade of red. "You must be Thea," Ronda said, holding her hand out to the smaller woman. There was a full seven inch height difference between them, with Thea standing at just five feet. "I'm Ronda. It's good to meet you."
"It's great to meet you, Ronda," Thea said warmly as she accepted the firm handshake, pleased that Ronda was welcoming rather than being stand-offish. An awkward first exchange would have been a real negative start to a month of filming, and would have done nothing to ease her nerves.
"Come in," Ronda said, opening the door wider for Thea and the cameraman to enter the locker room. As they walked in, she added, "You better get used to carrying my cases and shit like that if you're with me for a month."
"Sorry, what?" Thea asked, taken aback.
"I'm messing with you," Ronda said, laughing good-naturedly at the discomfort her joke had caused. "Have a seat and tell me how the hell this is all going to work, while I finish getting ready." By finish getting ready, she meant putting her boots on and putting her hair up into a tight bun, which she set about doing as they talked.
Thea sat down on a long bench which ran along one wall of the locker room. "Well, we're going to be with you twenty four seven, or as close to it as we can get, as you know. And we're going to film everything. We're just going to keep filming all the time; everywhere you go, everyone you talk to. The footage we shoot will be edited later to make the actual documentary."
"That's some kind of fucking job for someone," Ronda said, still working on getting her hair right. With another laugh she added, "And that will need to be edited. Whoever does your bleeping for bad language might be on a bit of a mission with this thing."
"Well, the whole idea is that we show the real Ronda going about her daily life. If that involves swearing..."
"I'll do my best to be a good girl," Ronda grinned. "Gotta keep Hunter and Steph happy."
There had been no real cutting edge to the sarcasm, but keen to move the conversation on, Thea said, "You're actually making a return here tonight at Survivor Series following a calf strain. From what I was told, the original prognosis was that you would be out for around three weeks, yet it's been two months. That sounds quite nasty."
"Yeah," Ronda grimaced at the thought. "It was a strange one. A couple of times I got back to feeling like I was okay, but almost as soon as I started doing heavier training I started feeling pain in it again. Still, it's felt fine for two weeks now and I've been training well. I'm good to go tonight, and I can't wait to get back out there."
Thea was glad that Ronda seemed comfortable with talking to her, and interested in doing so. She was responding to questions with detailed answers, which made any kind of interview so much easier to conduct, and also better for viewers to watch. While Ronda crouched down to lace up her boots, Thea asked, "Your husband is also out injured right now. In some ways it must have been nice for you both to be out at the same time?"
"I know what you mean, and in a way, yeah it's nice for Seth and I to have some real, quality time to spend with each other. It can be a rare thing at times. Neither of us likes to be out of action, though. Wrestling is what we both love to do. There's nothing quite like being out there, giving it everything we've got, in front of the best fans in the world. At least his injury isn't serious either. He sprained his ankle a few weeks ago. That kind of thing is really painful at the time, but it doesn't take long to heal."
There was a moment of hesitance from Thea as she tried to decide if she should go on talking about Seth, or to ask a question about Ronda's well known special connection with the fans. The decision was taken out of her hands when Ronda finished lacing up her second boot with a little flourish. "I've not been told what I'm doing tonight yet, so why don't we go find out what the deal is?"
"Sure," Thea agreed, getting to her feet. She knew enough about the wrestling business to know roughly how the creative process worked and how matches were booked. Even that side of the business wasn't off limits for the documentary, although it seemed obvious that WWE would want to do some editing as far as that was concerned before the finished product was aired.
Ronda lead the way out of the locker room and down the hallway, walking at a brisk pace that left Thea having to hurry to keep up. She had decided to leave the questions for a while and to instead observe how Ronda interacted with her colleagues, and when the time came, her superiors. Again though, it didn't work out like that. Rather than being withdrawn, Ronda was talking away as though Thea was someone she had known for a long time.
"We've sorted out a room each for you and your cameraman at home. We'll be flying back there after the show tonight."
"Great, thank you," Thea smiled. "I'm looking forward to meeting your husband. And you have a housemate too, right?"
"Not just a housemate, my best friend," Ronda clarified. "Maggie's an amazing girl and she's been such a positive influence on my life. Seth has too, obviously, but everyone needs a best friend."
The conversation was cut off before it could go any further, because as they made a left turn into another hallway, they saw Roman Reigns approaching them. Ronda was pleased to see another of her close friends. Seeing Roman was now something of a rarity thanks to the WWE draft leaving them on separate shows. There had been one night, after Seth and Ronda had ended their first relationship, that she and Roman had become more than friends, but she knew that was a secret that neither of them intended to let slip out because they were now both married.
"Hey, how are you?" Ronda asked him warmly.
"I'm good. You?" They reached each other and exchanged a brief hug as a further greeting. Thea and the cameraman waited a few feet away. It was obvious that Ronda wasn't much of a hugger.
"Good. Finally managed to get rid of the injury, so I'm ready to go."
Roman gestured towards Thea and the cameraman with his head. "Is this for the documentary you mentioned?"
"Yeah. A month of having everything I do filmed. What could possibly go wrong?" Roman asked with raised eyebrows.
A glint of humour came to Roman's eyes. "With you? Anything's possible."
Ronda turned to the camera with a broad smile on her face. "You see what I have to put up with, with this guy?"
They both laughed at that. "So what's the plan for you tonight?" Roman asked.
"Not sure yet," Ronda replied with a shrug. "That's actually where I was going, to find out."
"I'll let you carry on then," Roman said easily. "We should do dinner or something when Seth's back on the road. How's he getting on, anyway? Haven't spoken to him this week."
"He's doing great," Ronda said. There was a slight but perceptible change in her tone when she talked about her huband that she didn't even realise herself. It was the kind of tone that was only used by someone who was talking about someone who they loved very deeply. "I think they could have had him back by now if they wanted to push him, but he'd hardly had a day off all year before the injury. A few weeks of rest is doing him a world of good. He'll be back on TV in a week or two. They'll almost certainly ask him to do Europe."
While Ronda and Roman talked about WWE's upcoming tour of Europe, which was only eight days away from starting, Thea turned to the camera with a smile on her face. She made sure to keep her voice quiet enough for Ronda not to hear over her own conversation. "The way she talks about Seth. I think that's adorable. I can't wait to see them together. Ronda Rousey: Romantic definitely isn't something I expected to be thinking about, although I'm not sure why now. It's just not the impression you get from watching her on TV."
"I'll let you get on then," Roman was saying. "Enjoy, whatever they have planned for you."
"You too," Ronda smiled back. "I'm really digging some of the shit that you and Bray have been doing."
"Thanks," Roman said, genuinely appreciating the compliment. "I'll catch you later." With that he walked past Thea with a slight nod of acknowledgement, and was gone.
Ronda gestured with her head for Thea to follow, and the swift walking pace was resumed. Knowing that they were going to find the Chairman of WWE, Thea took the opportunity to talk to Ronda about him. "You're on your way to speak to Triple H right now. It's common knowledge that he was the one who signed you to WWE as a referee, way back when, and it's also well known that he was the one who encouraged you to join the active roster as a wrestler. What I've heard is that the two of you have always enjoyed a good and close working relationship. Would you say that was true?"
Glancing down at the smaller woman, there was the first sign of displeasure from Ronda in the harder expression on her face. "We work well together, and I have a lot of respect for Hunter, but I wouldn't describe it as a close relationship."
Thea knew that the documentary would be criticised heavily if she rolled over every time Ronda bristled at something she said or a question she asked. With that in mind, she decided to set her stall out early and show her subject that it wouldn't happen by pushing on with her line of questioning. "But you would agree that you have a better working relationship with Hunter than you do with Stephanie? And better than you did with Vince McMahon when he was still in charge?"
Ronda stopped in her tracks, which made Thea instinctively expect an angry outburst. There was just some vibe that she had quickly picked up on which told her that Ronda would be quick to explode if she was pushed. To her surprise though, she saw Ronda offer her a knowing smile on this occasion. "You're good at your job, Thea. I like that. I can respect that. I'm glad they didn't send some lame ass pushover, that would have been boring. And you're right, I do get along with Hunter easier than Stephanie, but that doesn't mean I don't have respect for her. The same goes for Vince. And I've even been in the ring with Steph, so yeah, there's definitely respect there, of course there is. Hunter's done a lot for me over the years though, inside the ring and out. He's one of the major reasons that Ronda Rousey, or women's wrestling as a whole, are now as successful as they are. If that's not deserving of respect then I don't know what is."
Satisfied with that answer, Thea said nothing further as they finished the short walk to the Chairman's office. "Are you supposed to come in with me on things like this?" Ronda asked Thea as they approached the open office door, trying to remember what she had been told weeks before. Some of the ground rules had slipped her mind. Rules in general were not her kind of thing.
"Yeah, but I'm not supposed to say anything."
That sounded lame to Ronda, which made her chuckle as she walked into the office, giving the door a little knock on the way in out of politeness. "Hey, Hunter," she greeted the boss, sounding more like someone seeing an old friend for the first time in months.
"Ronda," Hunter said with genuine warmth of his own and a smile to match as he looked up from the text message that he had been in the middle of writing. Setting his phone aside, he stood and walked around his desk so that he could properly greet one of his favourite proteges. "Great to have you back," he said as they exchanged a brief hug, much like the one Ronda had exchanged with Roman a couple of minutes earlier.
"I'm glad to be back. That stupid injury seemed like it was never going to heal. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what that's like."
"No. I've had my share of them," Hunter said with a little chuckle at the major understatement.
The first thing Ronda had noticed when she had entered was that Hunter was the only person in the office. "No Stephanie tonight?"
"She's here somewhere. I'm sure you'll catch up with her at some point. She was working with Thea earlier, before she came and found you. Everything going okay so far?" The question had been addressed to both Ronda and Thea, who nodded to let him know that she was happy with things so far.
"Yeah, I think we're going to get on just fine," Ronda said. "Unless she gets sick of me of course," she added with a grin.
"I'll give it three days," Hunter laughed.
"I just came to find out what you've got planned for me tonight," Ronda said, moving the conversation on quickly, as was her usual style.
The Chairman's expression became slightly mischievous. He wasn't just going to come right out and tell her what the idea was. "Something a bit different," he began. "Something I know the fans are going to love. And I mean, really love."
"You're not talking about changing my character are you?" Ronda asked, immediately going on the defensive.
"Not as such," Hunter said with careful consideration, stringing her along masterfully.
"Just tell me," Ronda said irritably. "I don't like guessing games."
Hunter looked in the direction of the cameraman, who had been filming the exchange from just inside the doorway, and addressed the future audience of the documentary. "See how easy she is to wind up?"
Realising that she had been played for her loss of patience, Ronda also turned to the camera and grinned. "This is bullying in the workplace. And now we have it on film."
"Yeah, but it's my film," Hunter said, and they both laughed.
Thea couldn't help noticing how companionable they were with each other. Ronda might have played down the suggestions of a close working relationship between them, but it was fairly obvious that there was one, regardless of what she had said.
"Alright, seriously, what's the plan?" Ronda asked, and with that it was down to business. "What are we doing that the fans are going to love?"
"We're putting you on a team with Bayley, and you're going over for the Divas Tag Team titles tonight," Hunter announced, with evident pride in his idea.
Ronda weighed that up for a moment and then slowly nodded. "You're right, the fans will love that. The two fan favourite Divas on the same team. I thought it was Bayley and Becky tonight though?"
That was indeed what had been advertised on the card: Bayley and Becky Lynch against the Divas Tag Team Champions, Nikki Bella and Sarita Lopez.
"That's what's on the card," Hunter nodded. "We did the whole thing last week with Bayley trying to find a herself a partner. When she goes out there tonight though, Becky is going to pull a no-show, or so it will seem. We'll play her music a couple of times and announce her, but she won't come out. Then your music will hit, the fans will go wild, you'll walk out and get in Bayley's corner. Then you'll go over. I want you to go find her and see i you can put together some kind of double team finish that involves her Bayley to Belly and your clothesline in some kind of combination."
As she tried to take all of that in, Ronda found herself caught up on a detail that didn't really need to concern her. "Why would Becky not show up if she agreed to be on Bayley's team?"
Hunter already had an answer prepared for that, knowing how picky, sometimes even downright awkward Ronda could be when it came to her creative. It was something that she had improved on over time, but it was still very much a part of her character. He knew that the best way to deal with her was to explain the reasons why something had to be done or why a certain decision had been made, rather than to try and dismiss her questions and simply tell her to get on with it. That style of management didn't work with Ronda. If she was on-board with ideas, she would give them her all. If not, her head would drop and the loss of motivation would show in her performances and her attitude backstage. Managing her definitely wasn't an easy thing to do, but he had gotten used to how to do it quite well. Doing so made sure that he got the kind of results from her which most often proved to be worth the effort with the reactions she got from the fans, and the ratings she helped to pull in for the WWE Network.
"We're going to show Nikki and Sarita going into Becky's locker room, and then we'll show them coming out again just before the match, looking pleased with themselves. It'll be made to look like Becky cut some kind of dirty deal with them to leave Bayley high and dry, but on Smackdown we'll find out that they actually attacked her and left her tied up so that she couldn't come out."
He paused to clear his throat. "So, Becky won't come out to help Bayley, you will. You and Bayley will go over, and we'll have the two most popular Divas on the roster as the tag champs. You'll then feud with Nikki and Sarita, with Becky in the picture too. You've had some of your best matches with Nikki and Sarita, so I have high hopes for this thing over the next couple of months."
The look in Ronda's eyes and the smile that had broken out on her face as he'd talked had already told him that he had her before she responded. "I like the idea of a fan favourite team with Bayley, and I like the rivalry too," she said. "All four of us get on well with each other and we've all had good matches. I think you're really onto something with this, Hunter. I've got an idea as well. Bayley's hugging gimmick? On the face of it, it doesn't seem to fit with my character at all. But why don't we make that kind of the point? I mean, I'll be kind of reluctant to team with her and get involved with that shit. I can picture tonight when we win, the ref gives her one of the belts and I snatch mine from her, that kind of thing."
"Good," Hunter said thoughtfully, nodding his appreciation for the idea. "I like that. What we could do is have it become Bayley's mission, no, Bayley's and the fan's mission, to get you to acknowledge her properly and hug her. I really like that. The payoff when you do hug her could get a really big reaction if we do it right."
"Sounds like we have a plan," Ronda said, clearly warming to the new storyline fast. "Do you want me to go find Bayley and tell her all of this?"
"The others all know about the match and the angle with Becky, but you need to work on the finishing move I mentioned with Bayley. I told her about it last week, so hopefully she's put some thought into it already. Go find her and talk that over with her, and tell her about the new hugging angle too."
"You got it, boss," Ronda said pleasantly. With that she turned to leave. She was about to speak to Thea, but Hunter's stopped her first. "Before you go, there are a couple of other things," he said. "With the documentary and all, we want to show as many of the things that make up the regular life of one of our top stars, so I've arranged a couple of appearances for you, working around your schedule of other commitments."
Some members of the locker room hated having to go to autograph signings or Make-A-Wish events, but Ronda wasn't one of them. Interacting with the fans who had always been so good to her was something that she had taken advantage of and shown no enthusiasm for in the past, but were now things she genuinely loved. 'It is your job to leave the world a better place than you find it,' was what her late father had told her, and it was something that she tried her best to do.
"Sure thing," she agreed. "Let me know when and where and I'll be there." Turning and gesturing for Thea and the cameraman, the small entourage that she was going to have to get used to, to leave the office, she said, "Okay guys, let's go."
While she had been watching the exchange in silence, Thea had come up with a lot of questions that she wanted to ask. Making this documentary was proving to be exactly the kind of thing she enjoyed.