10 Early Wrestling Predictions For 2019
5. Ronda Rousey Will Turn Heel
Already, the bloom is off the ro(u)se(y). Very laboured, that; about as laboured as Rousey's babyface performances on the mic. Ronda operates in two different modes: earnest all-smiles pandering and had-enough glowering.
Increasingly, Rousey is becoming homogenised with the environment she was supposed to be unique to. Selling for Alexa Bliss, an established star, was one thing, absurd though it was. Rousey on this week's RAW spent far too long struggling against Ruby Riott, a performer WWE has promoted only as filler. People are wary of the alternative - that a Lesnar-esque destroyer schtick would equate to Lesnar-esque tedium - but what's exciting about mundane, meaningless matches against the midcard rank and file?
Ronda is literally too good for her own good. The game has changed the game-changer, and so Ronda needs a change, already, to recapture that initial surge of promise. This should happen next year, either in a double turn scenario with Becky Lynch, or at the expense of Bayley - even if pity, more so than sympathy, is the emotion ripe for manipulation there.
Ronda has limitless potential. Limiting her work to the confines of what ordinary wrestlers do seems very counterproductive, and since WWE is too protective over the act to let it rot, they won't.