Ronda Rousey is the reigning WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion and she’s not likely to drop the title anytime soon. The current plan calls for possibly letting her enter the Grandest Show of the Year as still the champion to produce a dream match. But prior to that, she will put her title on the line at the Royal Rumble premium live event.
It appears that Ronda Rousey’s challenger at the first premium live event of next year has already been decided. According to the reports from Angel Aramboles of Wrestling News, she is scheduled to defend the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Raquel Rodriguez in one of the marquee matches at the 2023 WWE Royal Rumble.
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It’s also been noted in the report that Ronda Rousey is penciled in to remain the champion while going into Wrestlemania 39,
“WrestlingNews.co is told that Rodriguez will challenge Ronda Rousey for the SmackDown Women’s Championship at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. As for post-Royal Rumble plans, we haven’t heard anything yet from Rodriguez but we were told that Rousey is scheduled to go into WrestleMania as the champion, which would suggest that she will retain the belt at the Rumble.”
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Ronda Rousey already defended her title against Raquel, twice
When Raquel Rodriguez was brought to the main roster, the idea was that she would become one of the top babyface superstars in the female roster of the company. Vince McMahon saw big things in her and the Mexican Superstar already got to face Ronda Rousey twice within just a few weeks of her Smackdown debut. However, it appears that her biggest match to date is slated to happen at the 2023 Royal Rumble on January 28.
Raquel Rodriguez has been written off action on Smackdown after a vicious attack by Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler. The heel duo slammed her arm into a crate to take her out of commission for the time being. WWE even informed that Rodriguez would be out for the next four to six weeks.
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As for The Baddest Woman on the Planet, she went through yet another successful title defense at Survivor Series as she defeated Shotzi to retain her SmackDown Women’s Championship. Prior to this, she won the blue brand women’s title by defeating Liv Morgan at Extreme Rules PLE in October.
