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What's the story?
After it was announced last week by WWE that Ronda Rousey would appear on every episode of Raw before WrestleMania, it was obviously quite surprising when the former UFC star was notably absent this week.
And perhaps it is even more surprising when she was pulled from all but one of her scheduled Monday appearances.
Well, after rumours that Rousey missed Raw due to "medical testing" yesterday, Mike Johnson of PW Insider has broken the news today that Rousey was in fact preparing for her first ever WWE match.
In case you didn't know...
With the match being decided for WrestleMania, Rousey and Kurt Angle teaming up to face Triple H and Stephanie Mcmahon.
WWE promised fans that the former UFC star would be appearing every week on the road to WrestleMania, but "Rowdy" was nowhere to be seen on Monday, with the initial article reportedly being removed from WWE.com.
WWE also quickly removed Rousey her from advertisements for the next two weeks of Raw and only kept the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion advertised for the go-home edition of Raw and for WrestleMania itself.
The heart of the matter
Although she was advertised for this week's Raw among others, the for UFC star missed this past week's Raw, with PW Insider confirming today that Rousey missed the date as she was traveling to the Northeast to prepare for her Wrestlemania showdown against the Authority.
PW Insider also goes on to say that both Rousey and Angle were in Stamford yesterday working on the match.
What's next?
Rousey's first WWE match is scheduled for April 8th at Wrestlemania 34 in New Orleans, but we will see Rousey ahead of the match when she appears on the go-home Raw on April 2nd.
Author's take
This one could go two ways. Keeping Rousey fresh is probably a good thing as less is more now that the match has been announced.
If she shows up and demolishes the Raw commissioner and The Game every week, it lowers the intrigue for the match.
If the Authority gets the upper hand, people will complain about the former UFC star being booked to look weak.
The only two disadvantages here are that WWE already announced that Rousey would be on every episode of Raw until WrestleMania 34, for her to only appear on two out of the five - doing a slight disservice to those who may have bought tickets expecting to see her.
Another point is that Brock Lesnar is being built as a heel for not showing up, while the circumstances are slightly different, having Rousey miss a show the same week and not be booked to appear for another two shows could backfire.
