Ronda Rousey is no longer with WWE, but during her time with the company Ronda Rousey managed to win the Raw Women’s Championship once and the SmackDown Women’s Championship twice. Liv Morgan cashed in her Money in the Bank contract in July of 2022 to defeat Ronda Rousey and win the SmackDown Women’s Championship, but Rousey got the belt back a few months later when she defeated Liv in an Extreme Rules match.
In her new book Our Fight, Ronda Rousey talks about coming up with a finish for her Extreme Rules match with Liv Morgan and she shared some of the ideas she pitched for the bout.
“I took the title back from Liv at Extreme Rules in October. In the leadup, we rehashed the same old bull**** they gave us to say. We figured we’d make up for it in the match itself. We were adamant that this match have an epic finish. I racked my brain, then it came to me. One of the most iconic weapons in a “extreme rules” match was thumbtacks. A weapon made iconic by the company itself.
“Imagine this finish,” I told Liv, then laid it out. The two of us, grappling on the ground on a ring covered in thumbtacks until I finally get Liv once again in my signature armbar. Echoing back to our previous match, Liv at the same time gets me in a pin. As the ref starts counting the pin, I arch into the thumbtacks to raise one shoulder off the ground.
But Liv, refusing to give up, lets me “break” her arm, passing out from the pain instead of tapping again. She falls right on the thumbtacks and me. I would get the title back as WWE’s creative team wanted, Liv would come off looking like a bada**, and everyone in the audience and at home would be going wild because it was f*****g thumbtacks.”
Ronda Rousey then went on to say that when she pitched her ideas for the championship match to the WWE producers they shot them down pretty much right away.
“Liv paused for a second, biting her bottom lip. I could see her walking through the match in her mind. She got to the end and broke into the biggest smile. “Dude, I f*****g love it!” We took it to the producers. “Absolutely not,” came the reply before we’d even finished the word thumbtacks. “We can’t do anything that intentionally breaks the skin.” “What?” we responded in flabbergasted unison.
WWE was notorious for these kinds of stunts. They literally made thumbtacks a universally accepted thing in professional wrestling. Fake thumbtacks were out too. “What about rubber glass?” I asked, knowing the answer before the words left my lips. Again, we had to settle for a finish neither of us were too impressed with—and so did the audience.”
