12 Cursed Comparisons That DOOMED Promising Wrestlers
3. Ronda Rousey (Roddy Piper)
Oh, to have WrestleMania 34's mixed tag-team match back again. That captured lightning in a bottle. Ex-UFC mauler Ronda Rousey looked like the second coming of Kurt Angle when she teamed with the Olympian vs. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon whilst making this pro wrestling malarkey look like a breeze.
People got proper excited about Ronda's potential after that, and a singles run followed. Throughout it all, Rousey wore a kilt in honour of Roddy Piper, and even assumed his 'Rowdy' nickname. On comms, announcers told how Piper had passed his gimmick down to the MMA star.
So much for that once the honeymoon period of Rousey in WWE wore off.
WWE's audience never got in step with the idea that Ronda was Piper's echo in the company. After all, they weren't really anything alike; Roddy had been a silver-tongued devil on the microphone, and he was pure chaos inside the ring. Conversely, Rousey was nervy, stumbled over her words and was controlled during matches.
Ultimately, Ronda never had the right attitude for wrestling. She didn't appreciate it when fans booed her (another point at odds with the Piper comparison when he'd embraced any reaction and ran with it), and that caused major rifts.
Nothing about Rousey's presentation screamed Roddy either. It never did even when she was wearing the kilt, 'Rowdy' t-shirt and leather jacket. This was somebody who needed no-frills presentation cosplaying as a great for cheap brownie points.
It was so see through whether they were actually good friends before the legend's passing or not. That lore hadn't been told on WWE TV, so it meant little to viewers.