10 Ups And 12 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 34

6. Rousey Unpolished, But Effective

ronda rousey stephanie mcmahon
WWE.com

For her first professional wrestling match, we’ll have to give Ronda Rousey better than passing marks.

Rousey made her in-ring debut at WrestleMania 34, teaming with Kurt Angle to take down Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Rowdy Ronda mixed in MMA strikes, some judo takedowns and a couple wrestling moves, hitting a hurricanrana on Triple H and deadlifting him for a Samoan Drop (which Steph saved him from).

Ronda slammed Stephanie around a bit and repeatedly went for her patented armbar, finally locking it in on Hunter and then on McMahon. The second one ended the match.

As a first match, you have to consider it a success. But you also have to acknowledge that there’s a steep learning curve in wrestling, and not every match can have this level of protection. Rousey will have her work cut out for her, but she showed enough promise and has more than enough natural talent that she could be extremely successful going forward.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.